Blood Omen 3: Legacy of Kain
by Kojiokida2
Summary: Granted true sight by Raziel's sacrifice, the journey of the Scion of Balance continues as he seeks sources of ancient lore that might help him unravel the true path of his destiny. Unaware of an enemy he never expected following along behind him
1. Return to the Black Forest

(Authors notes: Those of you familiar with my work, no doubt know of my other attempt to finish the Legacy of Kain series through fanficiton… Legacy of Kain 6: Restoration of Nosgoth. Once finished, I never truly liked how I did it and so its short lived successor 'The Old Ones' did not get anyway and has since been removed.

I want to get into the real heart and soul of the LOK series and this is my new attempt.

And btw… this fic BO3 is NOT the end of the story so do not expect closure. As Kain himself said… "Fate promises more twists, before this drama unfolds completely."

Great thanks goes toAnanke and his fan fiction, the Latter Days as can be seen on Nosgoth. net from which I am drawing the writing style with Kain's VOs. I recommend reading it)

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**"Perchance, I am a fool.**

**Knowledge of the future and of the path of destiny… did these things make me arrogant and presumptuous? In the end – what difference could I make?**

**I am Kain and I have forfeited much in my long pilgrimage back and forth through history and now, I stand on the precipice of the final journey… the journey I have longed to embark upon for countless centuries was set to begin.**

**Raziel had given to me the fortuitous and divine healing I had been pursuing all along without ever knowing.**

**False gods and exiled demons abound in my way to their folly.**

**I am the disruptor, the pebble in the pond… I am Kain… the child of destiny."**

**-**

**-**

The misty haze filled the deep and dark stretches of the swampy Termogent Forest, the rolling stagnant blanket of white carpeted the trees so badly that it was impossible to see beyond a few feet. The air was cold and clammy but still without the hint of the breeze to blow away the fog. The smell of rotting vegetation gently hung close to the ground.

Animals came out nervously to forage for whatever food they could find in this dark place but darted back for cover instantly. Something was moving through the woods, something terrible and something powerful. Like a wolf it moved through the trees, leaping from branch to branch never touching the stagnant pools that formed around the roots. It moved like lightning, swift and agile and never tiring.

With one final twisting leap it cleared the trees and came out onto a rocky outcrop. In the dim light, its silver white mane down its back could be seen. Slowly it padded to the edge of the rock face and gazed down into the valley below. From this vantage point, the distant edges of the forest could faintly be seen. But closer still were the peeks of a large house, all but hidden within the dense canopy of evergreens.

With a sigh, the creature sat back down on its haunches and let out a soft howl.

Slowly it began to change, its front limbs becoming powerful arms. Its fur receded placed by touch leathery skin and the mane becoming long snow white hair tied back behind a head that sprouted a crest of horns just above the eye ridges.

Kain shifted his body and then stared down to behold this place again in his true form, scanning everything he could see with his eyes for tell tale danger signs.

Here, in this valley and surrounded on all sides by lethal water, was the derelict mansion of the vampire Vorador.

**_"Secluded, far from civilisation, in the darkest reaches of the black Termogent forest… Vorador had lived as most vampires of his esteemed age had lived, in isolation. Not that Vorador had been alone here for he had gathered to himself a private court of vampires and human thralls to serve him, many of whom he took for concubine brides; a symptom of just one of his more unsavoury habits."_**

Kain frowned, gazing out at the massive panorama before him and squinting at the sunlight on the horizon. The sun no longer burnt him, having long outgrown that weakness, but his eyes always remained sensitive to the light of day. To shade his eyes he looked down again at the tips of the hidden mansion, styled it seems to resemble the trees around them so much so that from a distance the mansion might be invisible.

**_"Here I returned, seeking that which lay before me… my true role as Scion of Balance in the ancient prophecy spoken by my ancestors. Vorador, beyond all else, had been a scholar of many a forgotten lore and within the dusty and fungus ridden tomes of his libraries I hoped to find forgotten clues to direct me."_**

He paused then and knelt, peering down more closely at the trees. There was definitely movement out there, clumsy movement that no forest creature could do but rather indicated the presence of men. He sniffed the air and then flared his nostrils at the smell.

**_"But all was not well, for the unmistakable carnal house stink of vampiric death hung in the air. Moebius' vampire hunters were no doubt nearby, waiting in the swamps for any straggling fledglings that might have escaped their fires. _**

**_Their master, Moebius the Time Streamer, was now finally dead for good and their days were numbered. But still right now they constituted a nuisance. I would prefer not to have them press their interference in my business."_**

On his back, the Soul Reaver hummed, sensing his thoughts it almost seemed and indicating its hunger for the soul of the next foolish creature to cross their path. Kain smiled dryly before reassuming the guise of the wolf, the perfect form for navigating the swamps and staying above the still lethal pools of water that remained perilously hidden by the canopy.

With the enhanced acrobatic skill this form offered, Kain landed on the branch of a tree further down the rocky face of the short cliff and then carried on, nearly flying through the dark trees.

By now in this time, the Pillars had fallen and the corruption of the land had begun in earnest. No place was this felt more than here in this dark, decrepit marsh where the smell of rotting corruption was almost like the stench from the corpse of Nosgoth itself.

Dropping down on a bare patch of earth, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight coming down through the trees, Kain sniffed the air. The scent of death was closer now and then he saw its source. Nearby, sticking up erect was a wooden stake hammered into the ground. Hanging from this stake was the unmistakable hourglass banner of Moebius' vampire purge. Above the banner, the stake stuck up through their eye sockets were the putrefying remains of two vampire skulls.

Kain snorted his wolf form's feral nose in distaste and carried on, leaping again into the trees.

The first time Kain had come here he had young, a fledgling, about in search of a means to kill the Guardian of Conflict; Malek the Paladin. The oracle of Nosgoth, Moebius in disguise, directed him here to the ancient vampire Vorador. Vorador had given to him his ring saying that if he required assistance the ring would summon him to battle.

Kain had put that ring to good use in Dark Eden, summoning Vorador to confront Malek while Kain pursued the fleeing Druid Bane and Sorceress Dejoule.

He had kept the ring after that as a memento and had at some point even taken to wearing it as an ear ring.

The trick he had used to navigate these swamps before had been to float in mist form, but this technique was slow and ponderous and Kain preferred to simply leap forward this way.

He had much to do and was impatient to begin. For the first time, hope stirred in his breast and he clutched it tight to himself. It spurred him on and made him speed his journey. Such a gift Raziel had given him.

Suddenly he stopped, ears pricking forward. Pausing on a branch he listened intently and heard the sound again. Sliding down the tree, he padded on soft paws through the thick grass on one side of a foul smelling stream. From here, he could see figures moving on the far side.

"Nowhere to run, traitor!"

There seemed to be about half a dozen of them. The speaker a big man, with well developed muscles and a scalp lock… a style favoured by the hired men from the east who had come to the central plains with the promise of good pay and easy kills.

He and his group, vampire hunters all, were threatening another man who was backed desperately up against a tree. He was a lot smaller than those around him and wore a light robe with a hood to hide his face.

"I am no traitor!" The cowering man spat back, his voice wavering. "I do what I must."

"Oh do you now?" A smaller vampire hunter asked. He had the same angular features that marked men from the Far East. "Let's let him swing."

They seized him and while one of their group hung a rope from a tree, the hunters amused themselves by stabbing him with their daggers in their victim's arms and legs.

Grimly, Kain changed back into his normal form and watched as they wrapped the noose around his neck and hung him. The man struggled weekly, kicking with his bleeding legs before he became still and his arms fell down to his sides.

**_"While I had not forgotten humans were capable of killing other humans, it seemed strange to witness this mod lynching. Perhaps I had spent too long being witness to the murders their kind committed against mine that I had not thought about them capable of such cruelty to each other."_**

With a frown he looked over at the corpse. Hung out on the tree and in the light he could make out the robe it wore in more detail.

**_"I recognised the marks on the unfortunate man's clothing as belonging to an old sect of humans who had the sensibility enough to worship vampires. It would seem Vorador made full use of them if they reside here in this swamp." _**

With a quick motion, Kain drew the Reaver. Its empty eye sockets blazed brightly in anticipatorily hunger and as the hunters poked and prodded the swinging body with their swords and pikes, Kain launched himself across the stream. He caught them completely by surprise, flying into their midst before they even saw him.

The big man turned to look down but then he let out a sharp grunt, eyes wide with astonishment. The Reaver was buried deep in his chest and it screamed, devouring his very soul. With a sharp kick Kain knocked him over backwards and he collapsed to the ground.

One of the smaller men turned and saw Kain. He cried out in alarm, reaching for his sword. Before he could draw his blade, the vampire reached out and telekinetically picked him off the ground.

One sharp gesture and the human's rip cage broke open, shattering outward with a bloody spray of gore and bone fragments.

Kain drank it all down, summoning the blood to his lips… letting it fill him with the strength he so enjoyed. It flowed into him, restoring spent energies from the long journey here.

"Die Vampire!" A voice from behind him yelled and glancing back over his shoulder Kain saw the hunter.

He slid aside just in time to avoid an arrow as it shot past. The archer stood not far away in the act of reaching for another arrow out of his quiver. A telekinetic bolt right to the face had him sprawling on the floor, clutching at his nose and mouth trying to stem the flow of blood and collect his shattered teeth.

The next hunter to charge at him wielded a sword and smelt of various vintages of liqueur. He was so drunk he missed Kain completely. All he had to do was grab his head as the human lumbered past and the momentum broke his neck.

All of these humans had the smell of alcohol on them and here and there were discarded bottles on the ground.

"How fortunate." Kain remarked to himself as the remaining hunters tried to surround him.

One hunter tried to catch him from behind with his pike. Kain spun out of the way of the oncoming slash and one free hand on the hilt of the Reaver, sliced the man in half from the crotch all the way up to the neck. The two halves of the body fell apart either side with a gruesome splat.

The two remaining hunters, recognising their peril, tried to stab at him with their own pikes from a distance. Kain however easily avoided their swipes, sliding low and bringing the Reaver across with him sharply. The blade severed the first hunter's legs and the human fell back, screaming in pain and horror onto his back.

Kain stood up, reversed the Reaver in his hands and brought the noise to an end by driving the blade straight down through the man's head.

As the Reaver sang its song of hunger and death, Kain turned to face the last one. Even with his half drunken state, his face was pale and filled with horror. He trembled where he stood, backing away pace by pace.

"You were so eager to kill a moment ago, weren't you?" The vampire asked, spreading his lips in a grin that deliberately showed off his fangs. "Then come… and see if you are so keen to die as well."

Wrenching the human towards him telekinetically, Kain grasped the screaming human in one hand and then sank his teeth into his neck. Fresh blood flowed down his throat, replenishing his energies again. Kain drank and drank, draining the human and did not stop until he felt himself fully restored. Once he was satisfied, he tossed the body aside to land face down in the stream.

"Apparently not." He said into the quiet aftermath and walked off, leaving the bodies to slide into the mud.

The walls that marked the outline of Vorador's estate lay not far way, chocked with creepers and thickly growing vines. Parts of the walls had crumbled as the ground beneath their foundations was too water logged to support their weight any longer. The main house, set in the centre of this compromised defence, was dark with its many windows filled with shadows.

Yet they were not motionless. Arriving on the outer wall, Kain paused to watch the house for a moment. Every now and then he caught signs of movement. Had the hunters infested the place? No...the figures he caught sight of occasionally looking out of the windows all wore robes to cover their heads and faces.

Coming down into the main courtyard, Kain approached the house not by stealth but openly… allowing anyone who might be inside to see him. Coming upon the main door, he saw in the window directly above a human face staring down. The figure disappeared as soon it became aware that it had been seen.

**_"To my surprise and chagrin, the mansion was far from empty. With their master gone, the servants had taken over and established themselves well to take advantage of that which had long been denied them; the privileges of domination. _**

**_In an odd way I supposed this was representative of the dilemma facing both vampires and men."_**


	2. Umah the Priestess

The humans were not the only ones to observe him. Perched on high ledges and columns of stone, gathered in their multitude were the minatory Ravens that had brought their master news of the world beyond this forested swamp. Like the human servants, they flocked here in their numbers, seeking the protection of that which had always provided for them.

Several of them called out into the un-natural silence that had fallen as Kain reached the large front door.

He simply kicked it open, the door banging sharply against the wall. The sound echoed down through the now derelict halls of the old house. Here, the wealth of kings and emperors had been amassed, displayed with pride to show the influence, prestige and power of Vorador's private kingdom.

All that wealth had by now however been pilfered away by opportunistic sneak thieves, taken as Vorador had lapsed into decadence and debauchery. All that was left now were faded tapestries and dulled carpets. Spiders spun their webs unmolested in the dark corners and across the broken windows.

When Kain had visited before, he had paid little attention to any of Vorador's possessions. He had been preoccupied in finding the ancient vampire and in eluding the tamed brides he kept as pets within the household.

The human vampire worshippers who had taken to scurrying around these fading buildings avoided him, although watched from a distance. They made no move to confront him, or restrict his movements. They simply kept a vigil, watching him from behind corners or from the illusionary safety of half open doors.

They were the first humans not openly hostile to Kain that he had encountered since he had left behind the sculpted worshippers of his own empire. But unlike those long forgotten cattle, these worshippers did not immediately drop to their faces when they came into his presence.

Still if they could not afford to kowtow to him then a respectful silence was the next best thing.

Kain decided not to bother pursuing them. They were not hindering him and if at some later point they decided to make themselves a nuisance then they could be easily dealt with.

The layout of the manor house was fairy typical although it did stretch on for some distance. Vorador's largest library overlooked a large back garden, with towering walls made of glass to give him an impressive panorama of eastern central Nosgoth. Entering the doors of the library, Kain pushed them open tentatively responding to a sudden deepening feeling of dread.

The door creaked open, echoing loudly, and stepping inside Kain looked down from a balcony into the centre of the library. The walls were lined with books on either side, stretching all the way up to the ceiling but directly in the centre of the room were several pieces of furniture including a large varnished table. Draped across that table and whatever lay upon it was a large white sheet, embroidered with gold. Standing in front of that table was a figure, wearing the same robe like the other humans but fitted to display a distinctly feminine frame.

On her raised arm perched one of this mansion's sentinel Ravens, its head cocked to one side behind the figures ear. Its beak was moving slightly and if Kain had not known any better he would have sworn it was talking softly. The bird looked up, saw him and let out its call almost challengingly.

The figure raised its arm higher and the bird took to flight, flapping up to an open panel in the glass wall. It perched on the edge before gliding outside. The figure then turned to look at him.

**_ "The moment I opened the door to Vorador's private refuge, I knew I had made a mistake. The scent that met me was not vampiric but familiar none the less."_**

Kain inhaled in surprise and took an involuntary step backwards.

"It… can not be…" He breathed, unable to control the expression on his face as the human looked him over. She pulled back her hood, exposing her raven black hair and milky complexion. Her sharp flawless face had curving dark markings down either side and across the brow.

"Greetings dark one." She said, bowing her head respectfully.

**_"Umah… as a human; long before I would meet her for the first time, revived by the Cabal at the dark crescendo of the Second Sarafan order. _**

**_Before me blazed the memories of she who had guided me, she who had counselled me and then of she who had betrayed me. Or at least, that was what I would tell myself in the weak moments when doubt began to seep into my mind."_**

"I am glad to see that not all of your kind had been put to death by the animals." She said to him almost conversationally as he slid over the side of the banister and landed at her level. "We had greatly feared that our master had been the last." Kain approached, fixing his face into the grimmest expression he could forcibly manage. Umah.

He had all but erased memory of her from his mind, driving this source of weakness from himself in preparation for his tasks, and yet here she was; taunting him with her presence, reminding him of that terrible moment that even now filled him with shame.

"Well as you can see your belief was mistaken." He replied sourly, approaching to be seen in the soft light from the candlesticks that lined the walls.

"So I do" She replied, with that characteristic dry wit that he remembered so painfully clear about her. Then she looked him over from head to toe. "Although I must say, your appearance leads me to believe that you are a vampire of some considerable age. I had thought Vorador to be the only one that old."

Kain stared back in turn.

"He is not the only survivor." He said, glancing to her and then to the table behind her. Something was concealed underneath the white clothe, something of a large size. "I take it you were a servant of Vorador?"

Umah smiled and raised her face.

"I had the sole honour of being his personal priestess." Her voice resonated with something more, something beyond simple professional pride. In fact Kain was tempted to believe that there as a faint note of wanted fulfilment and longing. She then looked at him directly. "My name is Umah and your arrival here is most fortuitous."

Kain raised an eyebrow at her.

"Is that so?" He asked slowly in a tentative tone.

"Indeed." Umah's smile was intensely disturbing and instantly Kain's instinct for those wishing to manipulate him, honed over centuries, was screaming at him to beware of this human. "I am in need of someone who can help me begin the restoration of your kind."

That caught Kain by surprise a little but he maintained his neutral expression.

"You set yourself a grand goal." He said.

"Is it not a worthy one?" She asked back, gesturing to the darkened library around them and by extension of the state of the once grand estate.

"That is not in dispute." Kain remarked, folding his arms. "What is however is your competency is such a 'momentous' task."

Umah didn't take any offense at this and turned to lay her hands on the table.

"You may doubt me but I know that what I plan will succeed."

Taking the bait, Kain approached on the other side giving her a sidelong glance.

"And just what is this 'plan' of which you speak so highly?" He asked her. Her lips parted in a soft grin that was amused but at the same time somewhat sad.

Slowly she reached forward and took hold of the white sheet before her in both hands, gently pulling it side to reveal what was underneath. For a moment Kain did not entirely understand what he was seeing as the white veil slide to one side but then as Umah pulled the sheet off, letting it fall away; he understood.

**_ "The corpse of Vorador. I had witnessed his execution myself when Moebius had guillotined him, displaying his head to a frothing crowd of fanatical hunters."_**

The beheaded body lay there almost enshrined, the arms folded across the chest. He was naked down to the waist, the upper class robe and shirt he usually wore removed. The entire body, even around the hideous open wound at his neck, was meticulously cleaned. Kain stared at the body, seeing beyond the obvious.

The care given to this corpse hinted at a devotion to the deceased far beyond that of a simple master and servant relationship. Kain shot a quick look at Umah. As she looked at the body she carefully controlled the expression on her face to maintain the detachment she had exhibited before but her eyes could not hide her inner feelings from him.

In them he could see a terrible tearing grief and a desperate, merciless hope for whatever she wanted to do.

In that moment of clairvoyance, Kain straightened up and frowned in understanding.

"We retrieved it at great risk from the mob of Stahlberg." Umah was saying, gazing up and down the body but refusing to look for very long at the space where his head ought to be. "We could not allow his remains to be burnt, like those of some stray dog."

Her tone was ridden with contempt.

"Spare me the sentiment." The vampire remarked; his eyes still on her as she reached down and drew the white clothe back over the corpse. "You mean to revive him don't you?"

It was more a statement of fact than a question for what else could be her meaning in showing him this enshrined corpse?

"You are quite perceptive vampire." She conceded, letting her shoulders droop. "Lord Vorador is the only vampire who can restore your kind. He must be raised for the assured continuation of your species." Kain instantly knew that this, an admittedly advantageous and legitimate concern, was not her primary motive. "But I am lacking the essential missing piece."

At this the vampire smiled.

"His head." He stated sardonically. Umah scowled a little.

"Don't state the obvious." She said testily but then checked herself, taking a deep breath to clear her irritation before she carried on. "The head was taken, displayed like a trophy and carried out of our reach. His body was all we would seize from the hunters but if he is to live again, we must have his whole form restored."

Kain chuckled.

"And so we come to why you require my assistance." The use for a pawn; an apparently universal method of control. It would seem everyone had use for him as some errand boy.

"Indeed so." Umah confirmed. "Restore his head to me… help me reconstitute him and your race."

Kain turned his head, snorting in low contempt.

"Forgive the rather pedestrian phrase but… what's in it for me?" He asked in a flat voice. Umah looked at him with sudden wide eyes.

"Do you not wish to see your race survive?" She actual sounded shocked.

"I have said this before to others but as long as a single one of us stands, we are legion." He turned then to look at her. "I am not to be motivated into philanthropic acts by some plea to my better nature." With a broad sweep of one arm he gestured, taking in the whole library. "I am in need of knowledge, ancient lore perhaps lost long ago that I had hoped to find here in his library."

Umah's eyes wandered unbidden around the room as well, glancing from right to left at the many books and scrolls. Then her smile returned and she chuckled.

"Well then vampire… perhaps a deal might be arranged."

Kain narrowed his eyes.

"Explain."

Umah walked around the table to the far side, running her hands across the outside edge.

"My lord Vorador is ancient, older than any living vampire and knows many things and secrets from a time when his dark kind ruled the world." She said, keeping her eyes deliberately over his veiled body. "Assist me in reviving him and I will speak with him on your behalf. I am certain he will depart to you any knowledge you might find of use."

Kain watched her move without blinking.

"And so you ask me to assume that you will keep your word?"

Umah shrugged and spread her arms.

"Your alternative is to search through my lord's entire library yourself." She said with a sly grin. "You could delve into these tomes for three lifetimes and not find anything of any value."

Kain glanced around at the books again, noting exactly how many of them there were. Scrolls were stuffed in whatever space remained between the volumes of books, all the way up to the high ceiling. This was not the only library of Vorador's to have this many books in it either.

She was right. He could spend night after night studying these books while there was no guarantee what he sought lay in any of them.

"Very well, clever priestess you have made your point." He said in defeat. "Tell me then, where might it be that your master has mislaid his crown?"

Her expression turned dark.

"It was taken by the hunters to the old Sarafan Stronghold that stands on the shores of the southern lake. There they hope to keep it as their prize."

That obviously could not be allowed to stand. The implied insult was not to be suffered.

"Then their presumptuousness must not go unpunished." He said. "So be it then Priestess Umah. I will return shortly with the head of your master." He turned back to face the door.

"Before you leave, vampire." She said, causing him to halt. "Tell me… what is your name?"

Kain froze.

He kept his back to her, so that she might not see the tortured expression on his face and the anguish in his eyes.

"You will learn who I am… eventually." This was all he said before his body began to emit a sickly green glow. The light became a mist that enveloped his body as it began to break down, his mass and substance morphing and taking flight. Umah took several half alarmed steps backward as Kain became a swarm of bats that screeched through the air before flying together out the window and into the sky.

**_ "Again, destiny forms the circle that I had seen so often already. Was this circular destiny to be the mark of those touched by fate, Raziel and myself? Umah was but the latest proof that Fate itself had a sense of humour." _**


	3. The Stronghold

The glory days of the Sarafan had long since faded and their stronghold followed suit. Once this fortress had stood immaculate, protected by the southern lake, impenetrable and insurmountable. The Sarafan banners that had once fluttered from its stone heights were now long gone, replaced by those of the hourglass; for now men with a similar cause inhabited this place. Moebius' hunters had taken this fort for their own.

If any of the hunters, patrolling the battlements, noticed the unusually large number of bats in the air they paid it no heed.

The flying rodents circled the stronghold once, before as one their flock came together in the upper courtyard which had the best view of the Great Southern Lake far below.

One bat connected with another, and then another and another and another. The bats came upon themselves, each reconstituting the larger form and when they had all united their combined mass morphed and became solid.

Whole once more, Kain paused just long enough to survey his surroundings and to mentally catch up with the elapsed time and distance. Once satisfied, he glanced at the stronghold and then up at the fluttering hourglass banners above.

**_"This fortress had long since suffered times decay but its purpose remained. To protect the murderers of my kind from the fierce retribution vampires might bring down upon them if faced in honourable combat. Sarafan and mercenary alike; cowards all, hiding behind aged stone." _**

Coming over to the edge of the courtyard, he looked down the flat stone wall to the platforms and battlements below. Even from this high up he could see figures moving about. The faint sunlight gleamed off their weapons.

**_ "If Umah was indeed telling the truth, I would find Vorador's head within. But she had already betrayed me once in my lifetime and I was wary of her ulterior motives." _**

Kain could have made short work on the door but chose instead to pass through its cracks and gaps, his body fading into mist. Silently he slid past the obstruction and entered the stronghold.

Time had dulled this place, as it had much of Nosgoth. The stones were not quiet so bright, nor the marble floor so polished. The statues of Sarafan knights, lionised with angelic wings, stood covered in dust in the corners of the halls and corridors. Many of them had suffered cracks due to expose to the elements and a lack of care.

Kain merely smiled at yet another example of decay.

Trying to detect the location of Vorador's head by scent in this place was futile. It stank of vampire dead, recent and ancient, the smell hanging in the air like a choking miasma.

As Kain came out of a hallway and onto a lower battlement, he came face to face with a hunter who stood there holding a pike.

The vampire and the human locked eyes on each other at the exact same moment and they were suddenly both still.

There was a moment of silence and then the hunter turned, drawing in breath to call for aid. Kain's reaction was immediate; reaching out with both body and mind he telekinetically closed an iron tight grip around the man's throat. He stood there, gaggling and trying to claw away the insubstantial hand choking him.

"I would prefer not to have to fight my way through whole platoons of inconsequential soldiers." Kain explained, approaching the suffocating human. "So your silence is most appreciated." When he was within reach, he casually laid a hand over the man's mouth to silence him further. Sharply, his hand draw back and there was the gruesome noise of snapping bone as the human's neck was broken.

As the human's life drained from him, Kain pushed his thoughts into his… searching his fading mind for information. Although he was by no means a telepath, while the mental defences were crumbling, it was easy to survey what lay within.

Through the human's eyes he saw the hunters returning to the Stronghold, directed by Moebius. With them they carried Vorador's lost head like some pirate loot. With little ceremony they placed the head in the antechamber, in the south west tower of the stronghold beneath the displayed statue of the fallen Sarafan elite.

Having the information he needed, Kain dumped the body over the edge of the parapet, letting it tumble down the fortress wall until it fell into the lake with a faint distant splash.

The doorway into the largest hall, the central cathedral like refectory lay a short distance away at the other end of a stone platform. Kain advanced inside, knowing from experience that the south west tower was on the far side. When he emerged within, he quickly slunk into the shadows keeping to his insubstantial mist form. There were a great many hunters standing around in here, at least two to three dozen. They were all clustered around a man standing on nearby raised steps. He was dressed in a black robe and had his hands held out imploringly.

"Men of the crusade, hear me. I come from Meridian to call you to battle!" He was saying, his voice echoing in the vaulted chamber. "The long awaited rise of the new Sarafan begins anew!"

Kain then glanced at the two men that stood behind the robed one and frowned. They wore iron armour of a short and their heads were shaved completely bald. They both wore banners however that Kain recognised, banners depicting a cross with a hooked top.

The banner of the Sarafan Lord of Meridian.

The two men looked a bit nervous when faced with this many rival hunters, their hands not far from their sword hilts.

"Sarafan? Why bother? The vampires are all dead. We did our job." One of the hunters replied, dusting his hands.

"Lies! All lies put about by traitors to our race… vampire worshipers!" The recruiter in the black robe declared, waving his hands wildly about. "The dark ones have not been destroyed and even now they regroup, preparing to strike… to murder us all in our sleep!"

As they talked, Kain bypassed them silently on noiseless feet of mist.

"Don't preach to me. I'm just in this for the money and the thrills." Another hunter spat.

"Ah. If its thrills you seek, then enlisting to serve in the army of the new Sarafan Lord will challenge you to prefer yourself, to become more than you are now… to become the angels of legend."

The small crowd of hunters buzzed with conversation.

"Sarafan lord eh?" The first hunter began, looking thoughtful. He tapped a finger against the side of his face before nodding. "Well if your self styled knight protector needs a good sword arm then if he pays well I'll join him."

Kain reached the far end of the hall, leaving the recruiter to his preaching.

**_"And thus the Hylden play their hand, to revive the Sarafan Order and conquer Nosgoth. With Janos Audron they would open the Hylden gate and begin their re-colonisation of this world. Their rule in this land would be short lived, for I had put down their upstart general centuries ago already. Even so this scene before me was unsettling."_**

In the corridors behold, the smell of the dead of vampire kind was acutely strong. He hoped that this was a good sign that the information he had bled from the mind of the human was accurate. Sometimes the images taken from the dying got muddled and confused.

"Well what else can we do?" A voice up ahead asked. Kain stopped to listen, frowning as he realised that someone was in the corridor. This was the only way into the south west tower. "Lord Moebius is dead now. We're not going to get any more money from him, are we?"

Kain banished his mist form and waited at the bend in the corridor just out of sight. There were three hunters standing on guard, none of them large men. One was armed with a cleaver sword, another with a jagged trident and the third more worryingly with a mortar.

"Well you can sign up for that 'second Sarafan' nonsense if you want." One of them said. "I'm not buying that crap. We got the vampires, all of them and I've made enough to re-tire comfortably on. I've no reason to risk my neck anymore."

Kain groaned deep in his throat, realising there was no way to stealthy move past them. His mist form was hard to spot but not invisible. He would have to deal with them quickly.

Without any pretence to conceal himself, he walked around to face them directly.

When they saw them, they each looked stunned and one even staggered back against the wall.

"Good god! That silly fop was right! They're ARE still vampires left!" The one with the sword began in alarm. Their confusion was short lived.

"Not for much longer!" Another of them spat in contempt, coming forward with his spiked trident.

Kain drew the Reaver in a single motion, the Blade awakening at his touch and eager to be fed.

"Vae Victus." He said in a sigh and met their charge head on.

A mere three hunters were easy quarry. One fell with the first strike of the Reaver, his soul devoured instantly. Another tried to stab at him with his sword but died as Kain swung back and impaled him on the blade.

The third used the time to load his mortar, preparing to fire, but Kain was faster and smashed a force projectile into him before he could use his weapon. As the human sprawled on the floor, the Reaver danced in the air before plunging down into his chest. The humans dying moan subsiding into the Reaver's hungry cry.

Blood seeped across the floor, pooling between the flagstones. Such a waste made Kain's lips twitch involuntarily in complete distaste. But it could not be helped. He had not the time to spare on cleaning up after himself.

Pausing to wipe the sword clean on their clothes, Kain turned to leave his skirmish behind and carry on.

Just as he did however, he heard the sounds of movement. Glancing back, he watched as the bodies of those he had just so recently killed began to twitch and shudder.

**_"Before my very eyes, the corpses of those hunters whom I had already cut down rose back up to their feet."_**

The bodies, still baring the cuts and impaled wounds made by the Reaver lurched up; standing unsteadily on legs that looks as if they were being forced as one might force a puppet to dance on its strings. The vacant, unseeing eyes began to pulse with an unearthly green glow as the three animated corpse lumbered to face Kain. Their feet making a metallic slashing sound on the blood soaked floor.

"What is this sorcery?" He demanded in a low voice.

The first corpse looked at him, green light coming from its eyes and mouth.

"No sorcery vampire." It said; the raspy voice was like a distant echo, a call from some immeasurably long distance. "Only the loosening of chains, long held in constriction."

The second hunched down, arms spread wide.

"The binding is nearly gone now." It added jubilantly.

"Soon the gate will open." The third put in, moving to one side to keep Kain surrounded. "And oh the sweet, untainted air we shall breathe!"

And then Kain understood. His face changed from an expression of shock to become grim and forbidding, his hands tightening on the grip of the Soul Reaver.

"Enjoy it while you may, Hylden." He told them. "Your freedom is but a tentative reprieve."

"Foolish creature!" One of them barked, lumbering force; its hijacked puppet corpse jerking back and forth at the effort. "Our time has come and your continued existence matters not." The body it controlled pointed a finger at him. "Your efforts against us have failed before they had even begun!"

One of them tried to leap at him from behind, arms outstretched. Kain swung in time, shouldering the puppet off him and slamming it hard against the side of a wall, splashing in the pooled blood. Before it could rise, he pinned it there with one foot and it lay there struggling weakly and splashing drops of blood all over itself.

"Your minds are liquid if you can not see that my very existence proves that your Sarafan order and your General both will fail!" Kain said; claymore held at the ready with its tip down towards the struggling being.

All three Hylden laughed in response, the rasping noise tainted by the malice and hatred that seemed to seep from them.

"You think we not know that, Kain?" The one on the floor asked, scratching at his foot with bare nails.

"You think we risked all of our kind in our tampering with causality to have a preordained event stop us?" Another added, still laughing hoarsely.

"No vampire! Our general…our master, is wiser than that." The third spat. "He will play his role, like us all, and when the binding truly shatters and our umbilical cord is cut… we will take for ourselves the land you left undefended!"

"Enough of this!" Kain snapped with bared fangs, pushed past his patience threshold by their taunting.

"As you say." The one beneath his heal hissed and took a hold of his ankle. Slowly it and the other two as well began to change, the Hylden possession of the bodies changing them. Bony spikes pushed out along the outside edge of their arms, their nails changing into jagged claws. The mouths distended horribly, filled with row upon row of elongated teeth as their skin change becoming though and leathery.

Kain struck before the one underneath his foot could finish transforming, the Reaver wedging itself directly into the skull. The Hylden gargled; the noise drowned out by the Reaver's scream as it yanked the creature's soul through the dimensions themselves to feed.

The two remaining warped creatures attacked him from behind but Kain ducked under their lunges. He kicked one in the stomach, forcing it to back off and slam against the wall. With room to move, he brought the Reaver around so fast it blurred as it swung. There were a hideous tearing noise and the crack of breaking, shearing bone as the Reaver sliced the nearest of the two in half.

As the torso and the legs fell down, collapsing into the ever thickening pool of blood Kain advanced on the remaining Hylden puppet. Hissing it brought his claws forward, swiping at him.

The vampire dodged, darting back and forth fading in and out of mist form as the claws came within reach.

Howling in fury, it gathered its hands together calling on the green hellfire from their place of banishment; galvanising it between its fingers. The unholy blaze flew from its grasp directly at Kain, who grimly dodged it and came in close with the Reaver.

The Reaver bit through the hands, slicing them both clean off. The demon waved its stumps around futility but Kain ended its struggling by the expediency of knocking its feet out from under it and then slamming his sword through its brain.

**_ "The Reaver screamed its feral hunger and for a moment I actual saw the Hylden's soul pulled through the barriers between our world and their living hell. His freedom was tentative as his essence was swallowed by the blade. T'would seem an easy means for their escape did exist in the blade although their desire for such an means would only hint at their insanity." _**

Kicking the body aside, he took a deep breath to let the exultation of battle fade from his mind so that he could think more clearly.

**_"And yet this visitation disturbed me. It would seem that the Hylden's scheming ended not with the Sarafan lord. His legacy continued amongst them, propelling them forward to what might very well be their final gambit. While the Hylden were a threat, my primary concern was the destruction of the old Parasite and false god who had led my people to disaster. Still, I must be wary."_**


	4. Vorador's Head

With the Hylden revenants dead at his feet, Kain had more immediate concerns.

There was the sound of running footsteps and he faded instinctively into mist form, backing off and then seeping through the door. More hunters were coming and Kain left them to find the warped, demonic corpses and make from them what they would.

"What...what horrendous things are these?!" He heard someone declare in utter revolution.

"Demons!" Someone else stammered. "Do you see now? The forces of darkness grow ever stronger! We must join with the new Sarafan Lord!"

The conversation dimmed away as Kain carried on, the way to the south west tower open before him.

Alarm bells were rung from tallest towers and the guards were called out in force, many men with swords, axe, crossbows and mortars running through the old stone corridors. It did not take them long to have men filling the stone walkways and halls.

Kain found their patrols annoying but not overly hindering.

**_"These men had made careers out of the deaths of my species. One could only wonder what role they might find for themselves if ever they succeeded in their gruesome task." _**

A suspended vestibule, with large glass windows on either side to show the view, stretched the distance between the fortress and the tower itself. Kain advanced across this cautiously before slowly opening the large door blocking the way.

The tower itself was hollow with curving stairs leading up, the outside wall broken by the occasional redoubt and arrow holes, sending beams of light into the dank and gloomy.

Occasionally the tower opened up into lower chambers and Kain was forced to explore each one, systematically going through the tower floor by floor. The lowest levels contained little more than spare arms and supplies but higher up there were large stone chapels one atop the other with flights of stairs leading between them.

It would seem the humans felt it safest to contain the head of Vorador in the stronghold's religious chambers. For all the good that hopeless gesture of piety would do them.

**_"If there was one power in Nosgoth that dominated all, humans and vampires alike it was the looming spectre of religion. I had never before realised just how much of my present dilemma I had owed to the erroneous faith my vampire ancestors had held in the Wheel of Fate and perhaps by implication to religious faith as a whole."_**

Ascending these chapels, he advanced cautiously, realising this tower to be the perfect place for an ambush.

When he reached the top, he found a large door baring the way to the pinnacle. He did not immediately break it down to gain entry but stopped just long enough to smell for the scent of humans lying in wait.

Sure enough the scent of at least a half a dozen hunters lay within.

It was impossible to tell exactly how many as the smell of vampire dead was still just as strong as ever.

**_"The stench of death on these humans who thought to ambush me was appalling. Any vampire with even the most basic sense of smell would be able to detect them a mile away. What amazed me even more was the stunning fact that these murderers did not know how bad they smelt."_**

Kain had much to think on already and was not in the mood to entertain the prospect of a long drawn out fight.

The door yielded to him with a single kick and he marched straight to find the hunters, lined up in ordered rows to confront him. To his distaste these hunters wore not the banner of Moebius' hourglass, but had already taken to wearing the banner of the Hylden's fake Sarafan.

"There!" Another hooded recruiter declared from the relative safety of the back of the group, gesturing wildly. "Do you see? Have our words not been proven? The vampires are not gone! One even dares to attack this very fortress!"

"For William the Just!" Another of them declared, pointing a sword at Kain challengingly. "We'll keep trying until we get all of your kind!"

Kain ignored them and glanced past their mob to a stone pedestal on the far side. His already grim face darkened considerably at the sight, of Vorador's head. It rested, clasped between the stone hands of a statue… of Moebius.

The Time Streamer's visage was holding it high above its head with an absurdly uncharacteristic reverent expression on its face.

** "My relationship with Vorador had never been cordial. When he had been alive, we maintained a distant respect even after our disagreement in the Hylden city. Even so, the sight of his severed head, displayed like some trophy to a big game hunter filled me with revolution and contempt. These hunters might make the excuse of defending themselves against the predators of the night but not while they used our remains to create such absurd travesties." **

Disgusted, he drew the Reaver blade.

"Then by all means, try." He said, holding the blade at eye level as his body adapted the practised and perfect fighting stance.

The first row of hunters descended down onto one knee, dropping as behind them men with crossbows and mortars rose up with their weapons already primed. Kain's reactions however were much faster. A telekinetic bolt struck one of the mortars held by the humans causing it to explode.

The force knocked several of them to the floor while the man unfortunate enough to have been holding the mortar at the time had both arms blown off. With a battle cry of blood lust and rage, Kain leapt into their distracted numbers.

The Reaver's cry as he brought it back and forth in their midst was one of satisfied jubilation with so many souls to feed upon at once. They were so close around him in such mass that he was copping at them more than fighting.

Hacked limbs and heads flew in all directions and Raziel's soul from the sword sung its benediction of Kain's prowess in battle.

A lucky hit, a slash down his mid section and he bared his fangs against the pain. Blood ran from the wound, leaking its previous life out of his body. The human who dealt the blow tried to raise his weapon to strike again but Kain kicked him in the stomach and knocked him back.

As the human staggered away, Kain swung around and drove the Reaver's tip up through his chest and directly into his heart.

Heaving his whole body around, he swung the Reaver and the body was thrown off to crash into another hunter trying the same tactic from behind.

"Burn demon; BURN!!" The vampire about faced just in time to avoid the searing heat that flew at him. He dropped into mist form and drew back, the fire shooting past and setting several other hunters ablaze. They all screamed in pain and terror, dropping their weapons and beating at their own bodies in a futile attempt to put the fire out.

**_"The human who confronted me was in the possession of a most peculiar device. With the fall of the Pillars, mankind turned from the fickle promises of magic and mysticism and embraced the emerging strength of science. _**

**_This contraption was an early, crude attempt that what the vampire hunters from my own time called a flamethrower. Flammable gasses were sent through the hose the operator held and set alight to reduce to ashes any hapless creature to come within range. These flames would not find me." _**

The flamethrower burst forth with fire once more and Kain faded into mist. Again, drifting back and away from the hunter who, grinning near insanely, advanced after him. The barrel like device he carried was heavy and with both hands holding the lit hose in front, he could only plod forward.

Becoming solid once more, Kain paused to carve another hunter down the middle before facing the flames again. Suddenly, the Reaver's scream changed. Its cry of feral hunger changed to one of concern.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Kain saw with alarm that he was standing before the statue of Moebius that held Vorador's head. The human was directly in front of him now, nozzle of his deadly machine raised and lit.

Kain had to save the head. No harm must befall it or his mission here would fail. As the fire began to erupt forward, Kain reached out with his telekinesis and grabbed the Sarafan recruiter who had stood off to one side watching the battle. With a sharp yank, the vampire pulled him through the air tumbling head over heals until he hung suspended there as a shield.

"What are you…" The human started in alarm but the words died in his throat as he saw the oncoming fire. "No, no, no...NOOO!!!" The fire washed over him and he screamed. Kain held him firmly in place, the human's body keeping the blaze away from the head and the vampire both.

Eventually the flames began to ebb, Kain blasted the charred body in front of him with a bolt of force and it slammed into the human with the deadly weapon knocking him off balance.

Racing forward, Kain grabbed the nozzle of the hose before it could be used again. Quickly he took hold the human, twisting his arm to hold it behind him. Thus pinned, the human was helpless as Kain methodically turned the flamethrower against his fellows.

The fire the hunters had harnessed lashed back at them, setting five of them on fire instantly. The others desperately scrambled to get out of the way, some of them climbing over the top of others in their desperation.

Still directing the fire, Kain leaned forward and sank his fangs directly into his hostage's neck. The blood that burst forth was a tonic, restoring his strength and replenishing his life. The wound in his side healed instantly and energies spent were returned.

He drained the human, drinking the sweet coopery blood down and when he was finished he kicked the corpse forward. One sharp blow with a long range telekinetic bolt and the metal canister on the dead man's back exploded. The force of that explosion literally blew the remaining hunters apart. Limbs, fingers, eyeballs and bits of charred skin rained down, blood splattering on the cracked and blackened stones of the floor.

The windows of the tower had all shattered at the shockwave and brick dust fell in clumps from the ceiling supports. With the hunters dead all around him, Kain sheathed the Reaver and for a moment regarded their remains.

He took note of the fact that more of them had been armed with mortars than crossbows, swords and axes giving way as well in favour of long range weaponry. The sword and the shield were no longer the only means by which warriors did battle.

**_"I better than anyone, knew that the world was in a constant state of flux. One era ended and another began… but this was different. It was almost as if with the Pillar's collapse; magic no long held sway in a world always dominated by sorcerers and wizards. Now, science, technology and mathematics led the way. If only such potent weapons could be turned against my ultimate enemy." _**

Then he turned to look back over his shoulder at the head he had come to retrieve. It had survived the battle in tact. The statue that held it however had not been so fortunate.

Kain stared at it and then smiled at the historically apt sight of Moebius' stone head, lying on the floor beside the bust.

He strode over, kicking the granite face out of the way and regarded the statue. He did not want to risk damaging the head by simply wrenching it out of the grasp of those stone fingers. So instead he clipped away at the hands with one talon, scrapping away the mortar until they fell away.

The dismembered remains of the ancient vampire fell forward out of the loosened grip and Kain caught it swiftly before it could strike the floor. For its size it was surpassingly light. Quickly he checked it over again for any damage.

**_"Despite its decapitation, the head was in quite good condition and showed little sign of decomposition. The look on his face however was perhaps a little off-putting. _**

**_Vorador had died with such a look of anguish and hopelessness on his face that it remained there transfixed even in death."_**

Vorador had not had an easy life, Kain knew. Any vampires he might call family, including Janos Audron, had been murdered by the Sarafan and his vengeance on the Circle of Nine had not delivered to him any satisfaction.

Moebius' own crusade had forced him to watch the rest of his species killed, the tragedy culminating in his own execution where he might have believed himself the last breathing vampire.

Still Vorador was not without his own faults. His hatred for humans and what they had done to his kind was so acute that he had once delighted in the sadistic suffering and pain of captured peasants and hunters.

Although in recent years his passion for such entertainments had waned, his contempt for the human race had made him more than a few enemies.

**_"Did Vorador deserve such an end? Umah did not think so."_**

Kain softly closed Vorador's staring eyes and shut his gaping mouth to give him a more respectful façade.

**_"Whether or not his hopeless death was earned was immaterial, I resolved. If Vorador could provide me direction then Vorador would live again."_**


	5. The Blood Pit of the Ancients

The bats filling the night air above the swamps flew as one, flying in between the pines of the evergreens. They flew with purpose and direction directly north east, skimming the low lying forests to the south before entering the misty and shrouded acres of the Termogent Forest.

They broke the silence of the swamp, their high pitched screeches echoing with no competition through the dim evening.

Then in one motion, they condensed together and became one. Out of their union, the form of a wolf bounded forth; leaping from branch to branch as swiftly as possible; bounding forth not stopping for an instant. Its speed, caused by the urgency with which it travelled, propelled it on faster and faster.

Then when it came to rest on the relative dry ground just before the valley in which laid the mansion of Vorador, it changed yet again and Kain stood there holding the severed head of the mansions lord in one hand.

Before him, the hidden reaches of the swamp concealed by the trees was alive with noise; yells, screams and the clash of sword on sword.

**_"T'would seem my return to this stagnant swamp is not before time."_**

Advancing through the brush, Kain kept low to the ground as he moved, treading on soft and silent feet. The earth was damp, not enough to burn his skin, but it made the ground soft and he made no sound as he walked.

Through the occasional gaps in the trees he could distant see the outer walls of the mansion. Nearer still he beheld the unmistakable movement of many men. Sneaking closer, Kain managed to see a few of them.

There was no mistaking them for anything but hunters, all of them mercenaries from the east with the same foreign angular features. These hunters however were better armed than those Kain had encountered in the swamp recently. They had mortars and crossbows, their bodies armoured with iron plating clearly given to them by professional blacksmiths.

**_"The forests and marsh were crawling with hunters, each one of them exchanging their hourglass insignia for the icon of the new Sarafan order."_**

Kain knew better than to confront this many of them head on, especially while carrying so important an artefact.

So instead he kept on moving, keeping as far away from the hunters as he could, threading through the brush and even resorting to his mist form once or twice to keep himself from wading through stagnant water.

The hunters were out in force in this swamp and Kain soon realised that they had Vorador's decrepit home completely surrounded as they hunted down and killed any of the robed vampire worshipers foolish enough to be found outside the mansion.

It would not be long before they raised the mansion itself to the ground.

Clutching Vorador's head a little tighter, Kain picked up the pace and soon the spires of the mansion were visible through the trees.

**_"I must be swift and deliver the head to Umah so that she might raise Vorador before these cretins overran the estate."_**

Approaching the mansion from the west side, Kain came into a clearing. Just beyond it he could see the half broken wall of the mansion's outer reaches and through its cracks the inner courtyard and the buildings themselves.

More immediately however, he stood facing a small encampment. Several tents were erected around stacks crates, bottles piles on top. A small campfire was lit off to one side, with three hunters, one woman and two men warming themselves by it and helping themselves to a large quantity of the whisky in the bottles.

The women looked up first and when she laid eyes on ain, she scrambled back kicking sparks from the fire. She grabbed her weapon, a spiked trident laid off to one side.

"There! Vampire!" She cried out.

The two men, one of them a large man armed with a blade and the other small but with a far larger axe looked over their shoulders and then they too scrambled to their feet.

"How observant." Kain remarked, watching them with a cold smile. He made no move to reach for the Reaver but instead he walked calmly towards them. The Reaver was a claymore, a two handed weapon and it would be cumbersome to use while carrying Vorador's head.

"Get him!" The little man spat, swinging his axe around as he made a lunge at Kain. Kain easily dodged the axe blade and then grabbed the axe hilt just above the human's hands. With an easy twist, he tore the weapon out of his opponents grip.

"That's not how you swing an axe." He sternly and disapprovingly told the surprised human. "This is how you swing an axe." With professional movements, he brought the axe whistling sharply across. It cleaved the human's torso completely, moving through flesh, sinew, muscle and bone, slicing the entire man in half at a sharp angle.

The two halves fell to either side into the mud, blood spraying out from the cut veins and arteries.

The woman attacked next, jabbing at him with her trident attempting to stab him directly through the chest. Kain batted her weapon away with one hand so it lanced off to the side. Then he lashed out, throwing the axe he was holding and sending it spinning through the air.

Thrown at such force, the axe bit through her face and sank so deep into her skull that the blades emerged out the other side. Her face collapsed into itself with a sickening crunch, an eyeball and dozens of broken teeth flying out with the spray of gore. The body remained on its feet for a moment before it slumped forward and collapsed.

"Die you murdering fiend!" The remaining hunter spat, charging at Kain with clear psychotic rage. Anger made his movements clumsy and poorly coordinated, the brutes sword swung around so randomly Kain almost didn't need to move to avoid it.

Before the human came within striking distance, Kain tossed Vorador's head up high into the air. While it was still ascending, he met the human head on and slammed his talons directly through the man's breastplate. When his hand emerged out the back, it clutches the humans quivering, bleeding heart. The human collapsed instantly, blood boiling from his mouth and the corpse falling onto Kain's shoulder.

Kain kicked the man off, letting him fall backwards to crash into the concealment of a patch of tall grass. Still looking at him, the vampire reached up and neatly caught Vorador's head as it descended back down.

He paused just long enough to tuck it under one arm before he turned back to the corpse. He much preferred to drink the warm blood from fresh victims but he was pressingly hungry from the long flight back and forth between here and the stronghold and so he summoned the blood from the dead body. It flew from the gaping wound in the chest directly to Kain's mouth, only barely warm and a lot of it had been lost to seep into the ground but there was just enough left to satisfy his hunger.

The way to the mansion lay open and Kain made his way towards the walls. He cleared them in a single bound and stood on their precipice for a moment to look across the estate and survey its state. The shouting and sounds of battle were coming from the far side and from this vantage point Kain could signs of frantic movement by both figures in robes and others in armour plating.

**_"It appeared as if I were in time. So far Umah's followers have kept the hunters at bay. But this could not last for as isolated as they are and without supplies, their limited numbers would not withstand a siege."_**

With that depressing thought, Kain made his way inside. The clouds overheard had been gathering, growing darker and oppressive and the distant roll of oncoming thunder made itself known. As Kain stepped through into the carpeted and luxurious hallways of the mansion, it began to rain heavily. The drumming sound of raindrops pelting the windows filled the background.

Coming down into a large entrance hall, Kain was suddenly confronted with one of the many ravens that made his old house their home. It flapped down in front of him, cawing loudly and beating its large wings in the vampires face.

Kain's own rigid self control was the only thing that saved the stupid bird from getting a telekinetic bolt slammed into its small body.

Without invitation it landed on Kain's forearm and lowered itself to look directly at the head Kain was carrying. It studied it for along moment before letting out a soft, melancholy call.

It took off again and flew directly up a flight of stairs and through a curved arched door at the top.

Acting on impulse, Kain followed it.

As he half suspected, the bird guided him, flying through the corridors of the house occasionally glancing back to see if Kain was keeping up. As ludicrous as the idea was of being led by the bird, Vorador's ravens were not the usual sort of carrion. They were birds trained to be the perfect spies and agents for their master. While Kain had no idea exactly how Vorador has bred such birds their connection to him, even in death, seemed beyond doubt.

The bird led Kain down in the vaulted catacombs beneath the mansion itself. Here Vorador had lain to rest the recovered remains of many of the vampires who had been slain by both Sarafan and Hunter. Vorador had also had built into the underlying stone, a framework of pipes to drain the water away from the estate and into an underwater canal that connected with the catacombs.

Down here, at least a dozen of the robed vampire worshipers were gathered around a stone circle in the centre of the chamber. Beside them, protected and lifted by four of them, was a coffin like box covered with a white clothe that no doubt held the rest of their master.

When they saw him, all but one of them bowed respectful to him. Not a grovelling sort of bow but the kind due to noble visitors.

Now, Kain wondered, why couldn't all humans be so well mannered like these good examples?

From in their midst, Umah stepped forward. She raised her arm and the raven flew to her obediently, perching there on the silent command.

"Priestess." Kain greeted formally.

"You're timing it impeccable vampire." She replied, stroking the bird to calm across its black beak. "The hunters have us cut off. We lost many of our number taking this mansion back from them in the first place. We can not fend them off if they press their counterattack."

Kain nodded, having seen as much out in the swamp.

"So I observed." He remarked. "However I return with good tidings."

Her eyes darted to what he held in his left hand, her expression turning hungry. Kain managed an ironic smile as he lifted his prize up, revealing to her Vorador's head.

The other worshippers gasped at the sight, but Umah remained rigid in her expression. Slowly she crossed over to him.

"May I?" She asked imploringly and without a word Kain past to her the head, handing it over.

**_"As I presented her the head of her former master, the expression on Umah's face was a conflicting multitude of emotions. Horror, joy, hope, rage and grief played across her face all in the space of a moment before she regained control of herself. She held Vorador's head tentatively, almost cradling it."_**

She seemed lost in thought for a long moment, her eyes only for the head and Vorador's face. Then she took a deep breath and remembered herself.

"Then come… we do not have much time." She about turned and directed the other worshipers, who obeyed her commands and began work on the stone circle in the floor. Two of them pulled at a metal handle set into the stone, each pulling aside two halves of a stone platform and Kain realised it to be a trap door.

The door itself looked like fairly recent construction, probably no more than a century or two old. The tunnel leading down from it was anything but recent, the stone work matching those Kain had seen many times in the ruins from the ancient vampire civilisation.

"Where are _'we'_ going?" He asked, watching Umah sidelong.

"To the reason why my master chose this place as his dwelling, so surrounded by water and isolated from true civilisation." She replied, leading the way down. Kain followed close behind, the worshippers after them carrying torches to light the way. Between four of them, Vorador's body was lifted down the tunnel after them all.

The tunnel did not descend far and the chamber it emerged into confirmed Kain's suspicions.

**_"The ancient room she led me to was clearly not of recent origin. The vaulted architecture included platforms with no stairs and lofty aeries where only those gifted with flight might reach. With dawning realization I surmised that Vorador had built his mansion right over the submerged ruins of some ancient Vampire complex." _**

"These ruins were made by the very first vampire's eons ago." Umah said confirming his thoughts, her voice echoing in the vaulted chamber. "This temple is what attracted my master to this place, for its unique function."

Kain glanced around the large stone room sceptically. It was round with ten pillars holding up a domed ceiling.

"Function?" He repeated. "And what function is this?"

Umah pointed to the centre of the room with a strange smile parting her lips. She held up her arm and the raven, with a short cry, flew to a balcony to watch them from its suspended perch.

"There vampire… behold." She said and Kain followed her gaze, staring for a while not quite sure what he was looking at.

"What is this?"

"The Blood Pit of the Ancients."


	6. Revival of Vorador

**_"She directed me to a depression in the floor, a bath like hole with pipes leading into it from all four sides. The pit was hardly larger than a coffin and just like all examples of stonework I have seen from my ancestors it was delicately engraved with the many runes and symbols of their written language. I was no scholar and could only translate a few of them… Blood, Life, Circle… the rest were a mystery to me."_**

"This pit was used by the first vampires… when their bloodline was in jeopardy, to revive those that had fallen." Umah told him.

"Then why is the use of this pit not wide spread amongst my kind?" Kain asked, but keeping his eyes on the sarcophagus sceptically. This all seemed far too convenient to work as described. "And why did Vorador not use it to bring back those vampires he cherished?"

"I don't know." She admitted, but indifferently.

Kain's inspection of this so called blood pit were interrupted when she started giving her commands to her followers.

"Place the master's body in the sarcophagus." She said and the robed humans did as they were told. Gently they carried Vorador's corpse to the sunken pit and transferred him from their coffin of wood to this one of stone.

"Milady… the hunters press their attack even as we speak." One of them said to Umah, casting worried glances back up the tunnel by which they had entered. "Is it wise to revive the master in the midst of such danger? To both ourselves and to him?"

She fixed him with a venomous look.

"No...We do this now while we have the opportunity." Her tone was like ice. "If we loose the mansion, we might never regain the blood pit."

"Of course Milady." Her underling said quickly and apologetically.

**_"They body of Vorador they carried with them, raised on their shoulders reverently and gently they laid him down into the pit as if putting him to rest. I observed as Umah took the head and with a great deal of ceremony, placed it back upon its severed neck."_**

She stared down at the illusion of the restored Vorador, his head only placed where it should be, not reattached.

"We are ready to begin." She said with a sharp nod of her head. Quickly she strode over to another curious indentation in the floor directly in front of the pit. There were ten of them spaced around the sarcophagus, basin like with a grate to stand on over the dip. The pipes led away from these basins and into the pit itself, almost like a drain.

The other worships assumed their positions on these basins as well, standing to attention and Kain wondered if perhaps this ceremony had been rehearsed.

"Thralls, our master demands a final service of you." Umah said reverently, her arms rose in benediction over them. "He who sheltered us from an uncaring world and he who gave us safety and protection now calls upon you give that which he is owed. For your sacrifice, he gives thanks and praise."

Then she clasped her hands together and began to mutter rapidly dark incantations. The worshipers in a circle began to do the same; all muttering in sync the low tones of some spell that must have practised for some time to get so perfect.

The pit responded; emitting a low moaning noise, like a low groan of some creature roused after a long hibernation. The noise was reverberating and it eventually made to make Kain's teeth ache.

There was a sudden loud shout from back up the tunnel. Kain turned to look back. He could hear the sound of many boots on flagstones. He sniffed and then scowled. The hunters were outside. He could smell them even from here.

They must have broken into the mansion after Umah had taken so many worshippers down here for her ritual. There was the sound of smashing furniture and windows. It would not be long before they found the catacombs and this hidden chamber.

"I suggest you hurry Priestess." He said turning back.

Then he blinked, watching in confusion. The vampire worshipers, including Umah herself were doubled over. At first he did not understand, but then the scent of freshly spilled blood reached his nostrils.

**_"Nothing could have surprised me more than the actions of these humans. Their ceremonial knives used to cut their own wrists, their own stomachs and finally even their own throats. _**

**_Blood spilled forth from their self sacrifices, pouring down into the basins beneath them and then carried along by the pipes to fill the Blood Pit. I watched in morbid fascination, unable to take my eyes off of the body swallowed up in the gathering blood."_**

Vorador was submerged, his entire body covered in blood. To 'bathe in the blood of others' has been a sort of phrase bantered around by vampires over the years but to Kain's knowledge no one had taken it so literally before.

The worshipers were dead there was no doubt of that, their blood seeping down through the grills and into the pipes to flow into the pit itself.

Umah was the only one still alive. She had cut herself vertically down both arms, avoiding her vital arteries and allowing her to bleed without fatal injury. She kneeling down and whimpering in pain.

If this had been a suicide pact then Kain had underestimated Umah's manipulative abilities if she had talked them into killing themselves while she had no intention of joining them.

"Live master… please… live…." She said from between gritted teeth.

Kain watched the corpse and breathed in sharply. It seemed intensely improbably but there it was happening before his eyes. Vorador's skin, turned brown so long after death, was changing. It was slowly but definitely being restored back to his normal healthy shade of green. Even his head was changing, rejuvenating itself and Kain could not believe his eyes for as he watched; tendons, nerves and veins slithered out of the top of Vorador's neck and began to feed into the bottom of his head. Once they were all connected, they dragged the head back into place.

Muscle, flesh and skin formed over the injury and Vorador's head was restored to his body; although it still left a circling scar.

But while Vorador's body was restored, he did not move and Kain could not detect any signs of life from him.

**_"It was not going to work. The pit could reattach the head to the body but still the vital animating force, the soul, was not present. This was why this pit was not more commonly used amongst my ancestors, it could heal even fatal wounds but it could not drawn in the reanimating force to bring back those who had past on. "_**

Just as that thought occurred to him something strange began to happen. He felt a tingling sensation, like a ripple of electricity passing through the air in close proximity to him.

**_"At the same time, a peculiar double surge of sensation occurred. It came from both the Reaver and the left side of my head."_**

Kain unsheathed the Reaver blade with one hand and with the other, removed the ear ring he had always worn. Vorador's ring had been a sort of trophy he had paraded around and worn for fashion for after the ancient vampire's death, its purpose of summoning Vorador had been rendered inert.

**_"The Reaver and the Ring both hummed, vibrating in my grip. The Reaver was aroused, Raziel's spirit within reacting to the ceremony in the pit. The ring however was pulsing regularly, like that of a heart beating."_**

To Kain's surprise, the Reaver suddenly lurched forward pulling him off balance. It dragged him forward, edging him closer and closer towards the pit.

Umah glanced up weakly, seeing him come near.

"Wha…what are you doing?" She asked but when she tried to stand up, the loss of blood she had suffered made her collapse onto her knees again.

**_"The Reaver directed itself without the need of my assistance, laying its serpentine tip directly under Vorador's chin. The ring I held pulsed even harder in my hand, almost too where I feared it might jump out of my grip. _**

**_This ring was Vorador's, made for the soul purpose of summoning him to aid those he chose worthy of allying himself with. Suddenly, I understood."_**

Clutching the ring tightly in his fist, Kain called out;

"Vorador, I summon you."

The Reaver blade screeched and in a moment of clairvoyance, Kain saw that the blade was creating a sort of vacuum within the space of Vorador's body; a vacuum that drew in a soul and trapped it there. At the same time the ring called out and acted like a beacon for one soul in particular.

There was a sudden lurch and the Reaver swung back away. Kain stumbled before regaining his footing. The peculiar sensation was gone but Vorador's body still lay there, submerged in the blood and gently floating.

The sound of smashing stone broke the ominous silence, followed by running footsteps.

Kain swung around, Reaver in hand to face at least half a dozen hunters come charging in down the tunnel. They had finally broken through.

One of them had a flame thrower.

"My god, what hideous dark rite is this?" One of them demanded, staring in utter disgust at the bodies on the floor.

"One that is none of your concern human." Kain replied coldly. "Leave here or die where you stand."

The human with the flamethrower barged past the others, the light of fanatic zeal in his eyes.

"Burn! Burn them all!" He raved and specs of foam flew from his mouth.

Kain swung the Reaver to adapt to his fighting stance but as he did, the hunters drew back, a look of startled alarm on their face. From behind Kain there was the sound of movement, of scraping talon on stone and a low primal, savage growl.

Kain glanced back over his shoulder and saw.

**_"In a gesture worthy of legend, Vorador rose from his grave… blood running from his body and murder in his eyes."_**

There he stood stood, knee deep in blood with much of it draining from him. His tall ears quivered with rage and his fangs were bared. Baptised in the death of his worshipers, Vorador had risen again.

"You! It… it's not possible!!!" One of the hunters began all the while making strangled noises, clearing recognising their famous last kill.

Vorador, grim faced and snorting with rage, strode out of the sarcophagus trailing blood. He strode past both Kain and Umah, almost oblivious to the both of them. Then with a burst of speed he shot forward and grabbed the human with the flame thrower so fast he blurred.

His hand closed tightly around the humans head, tightening into a fist and crushing the skull between his talons. Brain matter and skull fragments rained down to splatter on the floor.

"Get out…" The ancient vampire snarled in a chilling voice, throwing the body out of his way. He advanced on the hunters, a truly nightmarish demon arisen from blood to kill them it might seem from their perspective.

Kain had always known Vorador to be a reserved character, collected and controlled. Unleashed before him now was the inner fire that Vorador had only shown twice that Kain knew of. The first time had been against six members of the Circle of Nine and the second had been in Dark Eden when he finally put down Malek of the Sarafan.

Watching Vorador lay into these hunters and pretend Sarafan made Kain realise that the calm Vorador, the sophisticated Vorador… was but an elaborate façade for the savage Vorador underneath; a whirlwind of intense emotion.

He sheathed the Reaver across his back and watched as the ancient vampire dispatched the humans, laying into their number with his talons alone. His bare hands sent flesh and bone flying and soon Vorador stood surrounded by rendered corpses, blood and worse dripping from his hands.

Then he turned to face them. His eyes fell on Kain but then immediately he looked at Umah.

"M…master…" She started through bloodied lips.

"Umah?" He blinked his eyes ad squinted as if trying to clear foggy vision. Then his expression turned from distant confusion to one of horror. "Umah!" He raced to her side, catching her body and looking at the wounds she had self inflicted down her arms. "What have you done…?"

**_"Affection? From Vorador? And for a human? Such a thing was so out of character for him I was instantly suspicious."_**

Kain edged closer to them both as Umah looked up at Vorador with small sparks of tears standing in her eyes.

"I had to …" She said weakly. "I couldn't endure this miserable world without the only father I have ever known."

Kain stopped sharply in his tracks.

**_"Father?! Umah... Vorador's… daughter? All at once all the pieces fit into place within my mind and I understood perfectly well. This was why Vorador had been so distraught that I had killed Umah for stealing the Nexus stone. I had killed the only person close to his distant heart."_**

He stared at them both in something akin to true horror.

**_"All the doubts and guilt I had buried within me came rushing to the surface, unbidden. Heartless I was but I am not entirely without empathy. But that was something I had to learn the hard way, by destroying my own beloved son."_**


	7. Vorador's Advice

Vorador sat, staring out the window from his study; watching the damaged estate before him with a disapproving frown on his face. He had put on some more presentable clothes, including a white ruff around his neck to hide the scar and held a goblet in one hand. Occasionally he sipped from it, drinking down the blood one of his worshippers had willingly shed for him.

"You seem somewhat melancholy for one brought back from the dead." Kain remarked, coming in through the door on the far side of the room. Vorador's frown deepened but he did not turn around.

"I was resigned to my fate long before they dragged me to the guillotine." He said, swirling the cup between his talons. "The world held no more joy for me and my death was simply another in a long list of pain I had to endure over the course of my life."

Kain simply chuckled as he crossed the room.

"What about Umah?" His tone boarded on insulting. At this Vorador did look back over his shoulder and eyed him with a flat, unfriendly gaze.

"She was more than capable of surviving on her own." He remarked and then paused to take a large drink from the cup as if seeking reassurance from it. "But it would seem she is not an independent soul." There was a long pregnant silence between them. "How is she?"

"Her remaining followers stitched up the cuts but she lost a lot of blood." Kain replied, seating himself without invitation at the table and leaning the Reaver against the side of the polished wood. "Humans are so fragile after all."

He looked Vorador over, looking for any visible signs of distress but the elder vampire kept his expression rigid and completely emotionless, his golden eyes squinting off to the distance through the window.

"A human daughter, adopted I presume…" Kain began purposely without much tact and Vorador's eyes flicked in annoyance. "One might say such a thing to be near scandalous."

The ancient vampire turned his head to glare.

"I do whatever I wish." He said coldly in reply.

"Then I'm assuming you can explain it?"

"I do not need to explain anything, especially to you." He put the cup down on the tablet and stood up, folding his arms behind his back keeping his gaze fixed on the window, the faint light illuminating his green skin. Kain had seem him do that before and guessed it to be some nervous gesture he couldn't help doing. "I do not blame her for wanting me revived… but you ought to have known better."

Kain smiled as Vorador

"Ought I?" He asked.

"I expected great things from you eventually." Vorador looked back over his shoulder, his expression changed to one of peeked interest. "And you have fulfilled those expectations more than I could imagine, Kain."

Kain leaned back in his chair and chuckled, folding his arms across his chest; his grin breaking his lips and showing his fangs.

"Ah so you did recognise me." He said with mirth. Vorador rolled his eyes.

"Don't be impudent Kain, of course I recognised you." He sighed in contempt. "The look of your face, the sound of your voice and even the unique aroma of your scent; There can be no mistaking you for anyone else."

The elder paused and looked Kain over, taking not of the visible differences between the Kain that he knew and the far older version that sat before him. The evolved cloven talons on the hands and feet were the most obvious, almost with the tougher skin and crown of horns.

"I don't know how you managed to evolve so much in a mere few months…" Vorador started slowly with a suspicious look in his eye. "But I must admit; I am exceptionally impressed."

Kain snorted and shook his head.

"Flattery doesn't become you Vorador." He told him firmly. "It took me a very long time to become who I am today." There was a pause and Kain's look became a little distant, remembering everything he had sacralised to get to this point. He swallowed such distracting memories before they could incapacitate him. "I am no longer the rash and arrogant fledgling that so amused you."

Vorador looked faintly amused anyway.

"Apparently not." He agreed. Then his face turned grim again and he looked at the window again, brow drawing down into an intense frown. A long moment of silence carried on.

"What happened to the Pillars?" Vorador eventually asked. Kain followed his gaze out the window towards the setting sun. The window faced the south and although the trees blocked most of the view as did the thick reaches of cloud from the thunderstorm outside, the panorama extended some distance.

"I'm not stupid Kain. One glance at the sky and the horizon to the south west and I could plainly see they are no longer there." The elder vampire said, turning to look at Kain for some explanation.

"They fell." Kain said simply.

Vorador blinked.

"Fell?" This time Kain stood up to face Vorador on an equal level; the two of them now roughly the same height.

"The Corruption caused them to shatter and collapse." He said to the elders face. Vorador took a very long moment to digest this and then he grunted and shook his head with a resigned expression. He took the cup off the table and swigged the remains of the contents down in one go.

"The fail nail in the coffin then." He remarked pessimistically with only the smallest hint of regret, placing the empty goblet back on the table. "All my sire's hopes for the future have failed." With that he actually did sound sad. "Nosgoth is doomed. All that remains now is to sit back and watch this world's rot consume it completely."

Kain levelled his eyes, his face taking on an expression of disgust.

"Oh such pathetic resignation." He said sourly but Vorador ignored the taunt. "I know the future of this world better than anyone. This new era is neither the time nor the place for such meekness Vorador." The elder grunted and shook his head slowly. "Future vampires will need your leadership."

Hearing this Vorador looked at Kain sharply, his expression questioning whether or not Kain had lost his mind.

"My leadership?" He asked incredulously. "Nothing could be more incongruous for me."

"Perhaps." Kain admitted. "But it is a role you will have to adapt to."

Vorador spread both arms wide shaking his head.

"If leadership is needed for any future generations then why don't you handle the burden?" He asked spitefully and then gestured towards the nearby sword Kain had left by the table. The Reaver blade was quiet and still, the captive spirit of Raziel within having fed on enough of the souls of human hunters to satisfy its hunger for now. "After all, I see that you style yourself a ruler by wielding the Reaver."

Kain glanced towards the sword, pursed his lips and took a deep breath.

"I suppose." He said. "But onto business, the Reaver is partly the reason I agreed to help Umah revive you. I have questions…"

Vorador interrupted him with a contemptible snort, shaking his head with a mocking smile on his face. Kain took slightly taken aback by his sudden attitude.

"Oh this again." The elder vampire almost laughed, striding back to the chair and placing himself back down in it with a heavy thump. "You know you're not the first to come to me asking about ancient and dead things… and the Reaver."

It took Kain only a moment to ponder this statement before it made any sense to him. His eyes widened and he leaned forward to stare into Vorador's face.

"Raziel..."

"Raziel?" Vorador repeated questioningly with a raised eyebrow. Then the light of understanding came into his eyes. "Oh… so you know that wretched blue skeleton?" He asked insultingly. "Was that his name?"

"… It was." Kain admitted after a pause.

Initiatively Vorador studied Kain's expression.

"Then he's dead?"

"In a manner of speaking." Kain responded in a low tone, being careful not to look at the sword at that present moment.

Vorador leaned back in his chair.

"I told him he was foolish to pursue the fulfilment of the prophecies." He said. "Mere folkloric nonsense made up by a people desperate for hope, for any hope."

This brought Kain out of his state of momentary melancholia and he looked up.

"Hardly." He said so firmly that Vorador turned to look at him with a questioning expression. "Much has happened that involves the prophecy… and that is why I am here."

Vorador's face adopted a new expression that looked faintly disgusted and contemptible.

"Umah told me you wanted knowledge in exchange for your services." He said in a flat, unfriendly way. "Is that it then? You only want the stories told by a decrepit and faltering civilisation in their twilight?"

Kain returned the harsh gaze.

"What I want is information of something very specific." He said slowly, matching the tone. "The Scion of Balance."

Vorador's eyes lit up, mouth agape a short way. He looked at Kain squarely without so much as breathing for several seconds before he closed his mouth tightly.

"Ah… now that is certainly something more specific. This 'Raziel' of yours and his vague demands for knowledge of things long dead were trying my patience." He eventually conceded. "If you insist then Kain… I will tell you of the ancient's fables and their mythical Scion if you wish to waste your time."

Kain sat back down in his own chair, face to face with the ancient vampire again.

"Then tell me… who wrote the prophecy? What is its origin?"

Vorador smiled in approval.

"Good. Precise questions… those I can answer." His face adopted a look of remembrance and his eyes had a far off look to them. It was almost possible to see him shifting through centuries worth of memories in that moment of silence. Then he spoke and Kain held his breath.

"The origin you seek was the last ruler of the ancients, the Lord on High and the first Balance Guardian." Vorador declared. "Ba'al Zebur was the mentor and teacher to my sire and the one who charged with him guardianship of the Reaver blade." He added with a glance towards the sword.

Kain looked at him incredulously.

"You knew the first Balance Guardian?" He asked.

"Only through Janos." Vorador corrected, raising a talon. "When I was still human, I was a master-smith to an order of vampire knights loyal to Ba'al. It was not long after that I was chosen, given the dual honour of being the first human to receive the dark gift and of being commissioned to craft the Reaver." Then he smiled dryly. "For all the good it did them in the end."

He shook his head and carried on.

"According to what Janos told me, Ba'al was the one who conceived the design of the Pillars and their function in the first place." He shrugged. "I can not verify that though, I was born two centuries after the end of the war with the Unspoken."

"The Hylden." Kain corrected him without thinking.

Vorador looked up with some confusion.

"You mean you didn't know their name?" Kain asked, doubtful of such ignorance on Vorador's part. "You Vorador? The best scholar in Nosgoth?"

The Elder vampire cleared his throat a bit uncertainly.

"Any mention of the great enemy's true name was forbidden." He asserted a bit defensively. "All evidence of their culture, their cities and even their very existence was to be purged."

Kain frowned and shook his head in contempt.

"Short-sighted nonsense." He said.

"That's as maybe… but it was the Lord on High's command and we obeyed." The ancient vampire said, stating plain fact with a sharp nod of his head.

"We?" Kain asked.

"Myself and the Order of which I was a part." Vorador elaborated. "The Serioli, guardian knights of the Lord on High and the Master Forgers of Nosgoth."

Kain blinked.

**_"The Serioli! I had heard of them of course, secretive and mysterious master forgers who made the best weapons and armour. In war, it was confidentially asserted that the side with the most Serioli made weapons won. I had never imagined their origin dated back to the time of my early ancestors." _**

"Ba'al charged us with guarding the only written account of the original prophecy, the tablets of Dark Fable as they were dubbed." Vorador carried on.

Kain could not help but smile. A recorded testament? Such a thing would be invaluable to him.

"And do you know where these tablets are?" He asked eagerly. Vorador looked at him almost pityingly.

"Unfortunately, no I do not." He said and Kain felt a pit form in his stomach. "The tablets were lost centuries ago during the human uprising against the ancients. I have no idea where they might be now, even assuming that they still exist." With a sigh he dusted his hands in front of himself as if washing his hands of the matter.

"So you see Kain, this is nothing more than a fools errand. I will give you the same advice I gave your little blue friend." He raised a talon almost in Kain's face. "Forget about it. Fairytales and myths will avail you not or anyone else in the end."

**_"Despite Vorador's pessimism, I had much to think on. If Raziel and I and our roles to play in the prophecy had been foretold eons ago then how had my ancestors been so mistaken with their interpretation of the two champions, thinking there to be a Vampire champion and a Hylden champion and never realizing that Raziel was both at the same time? _**

**_What could have forced them to simplify the prophecy to the point where it's relevancy to my own destiny was negated?"_**

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Vorador glanced up.

"Enter." He commanded.

One of the human worshippers came in, bowing low with his black hood obscuring his face.

"Forgive my interruption my lords, but another of your kind has arrived at the mansion gates." He declared. "He demands to speak with you, Master."

Vorador's ears perked at this intelligence.

"Another of our kind survived?" He asked with a smile.

"He says his name is Kain." The worshiper added. Suddenly the ears dropped right back down and Vorador's eyes widened. He glanced to Kain with a stunned and confused look on his face.

"That... is not possible…" He asserted.

**_ "As Vorador marched to the door to investigate this impossible event, my seeming ability to be in two places at once… I realised that in my haste to acquire the direction I needed I had made a mistake. For now was the time when my younger self was due to make the demand of Vorador to become the patriarch of a new race of vampires from which I would have an army."_**


	8. Youthful demands

-

**_"For obvious reasons I chose not to accompany Vorador to confront my younger self and so instead I stole along the empty corridors of the mansion. I knew the layout of the estate well enough and so I came into the main vestibule just as Vorador reached it. I came out onto a balcony and there, in the shadows, I watched in fascination. There was no mistaking the vampire who waited below, with such handsome features to be anything but my past incarnation."_**

Kain watched, looking down from his hidden vantage point. His younger self stood directly in the centre of the large hallway, the Reaver swung across his back in their same style he wore it in.

Kain had known better than to take the sword with him when he came to watch, for the coming together of two Reaver blades could create that dangerous time altering paradox and for the moment, history and destiny were going along smoothly for him.

His younger self had clearly seen some intense battle. His old iron armour was scraped torn and dented in many places.

Kain still missed that armour occasionally, not that he ever needed it again but rather for nostalgic reasons. Vorador came through the large door on a lower balcony, flanked by two of his worshippers and stood looking down at Kain's past incarnation with complete surprise.

The younger Kain returned the gaze, neither of them quite able to believe that the other was standing in front of them. The fledgling stared because he was convinced he had already seen Vorador killed and as for Vorador himself he could not believe it was Kain here as he had just come directly with talking with his future self.

Kain rubbed his head, trying not to get a headache from puzzling through the complications of time travel.

"It would seem that my eyes play tricks on me." The young vampire said, breaking the silence. "I saw you beheaded by Moebius' mob less than a month ago."

Vorador rubbed his neck uncomfortably, fingering the edge of his scar.

"That you did." He admitted, spreading his arms. "I thought I spied you at the back of the crowd. But as you can see, I live once more."

The fledgling smiled.

"And that is indeed fortunate." He said grimly, showing off his fangs. "As for Moebius, rest assured that I returned the favour that he did you."

Above, Kain mouthed the words spoken by his younger self as he remembered them all too well.

"My, that was courteous of you." Vorador said.

The younger vampire coughed.

"I afraid I must apologise for I killed one of your human lackeys when he told me of your resurrection." He said a little glibly. "I thought him a liar trying to frighten me away with the threat of retribution."

Vorador shook his head and waved his hand to indicate unconcern.

"They're replaceable." He concluded. "What business do you have here with me? Is your juvenile scourge against the Circle of Nine complete?"

The young vampire's eyes briefly flickered in annoyance.

"The Circle is a thing of the past." He said with intense finality. "I have a new goal now… a new vision, for all of Nosgoth."

Vorador raised an eyebrow quizzically to him.

"And what vision is that?" He asked slowly.

"The humans must be brought low for the mass extinction they had perpetrated upon our kind." The younger vampire unsheathed the Reaver, sliding it off his back. He placed the tip on the floor and leaned against the hilts pommel. "A new order must rise with vampires taking their natural status back as the Master Race!"

"You talk gibberish." The elder waved his hand dismissively.

"Then let me be more concise." He picked up the Reaver then and held it in one hand regally at a tilt. "I wield the Reaver blade, the strongest and most powerful sword in existence. With this sword I will take this land back from the humans who infest it, with an army of vampires to sweep across the land and rebuild this world to our liking."

Vorador snorted dismissively and even the Kain who had lived through this before found that he shared the elder vampires distaste for the young fledglings overbearing arrogance.

"Your power crazed ranting is failing to sway me sufficiently Kain. I have seen many a fledgling before you become intoxicated by the allure of power the dark gift provides."

The young vampire stared at the ancient with profound disgust for a long moment.

"It is the natural way of things." He said eventually in a lofty tone.

"And this would be new order you speak of, it shall have yourself as overlord of all vampires I suppose?" Vorador asked tartly, with a cutting underlying insult.

"It is my destiny to rule over this world!" The younger Kain barked.

**_ "I watched this exchange with the most powerful sense of déjà-vu for I remembered this conversation all to well and it felt strange to compare what I remembered with what I could see happening before me._**

**_I remember this event with a far different shade of perception. I had perceived Vorador as being irrational and an obstructionist and given this unique chance to see it in clear retrospect, I saw myself as a blustering fool of a youth with absurd delusions of grandeur."_**

**_But I would learn in time of my folly, 'dulce bellum inexpertis'… war is sweet to those who have never fought. "_**

Vorador restored to the youthful vampire in the same tone.

"Your rhetoric is beginning to grow tiresome Kain."

"Then I come direct to the point." The past Kain snapped back. "Moebius' crusade has left our numbers dangerously low. If I would hazard a guess I would suppose that only you and I are the only vampires left."

Vorador folded his arms in front of himself.

"Your assessment of the situation appears accurate." He said in a placating voice. The young Kain marched forth just as his future self remembered himself doing and now stood only a few steps from the ancient, glaring up at him.

"Then you must begin again." He said more firmly than any fledgling should speak to an elder. "Create a new race of vampires… become the father of the next breed."

Vorador simply stared at him, eyes wide. Then his face began to slowly but surely twist into a savage anger that made his green face colour and turn a far darker shade.

": …You dare…" He began in a deceptively low voice. "You dare come into my house and demand from me such an abominable act?"

"Who else will restore us if not you?" The youth demanded. "I can not do it; I have yet to learn the ways and means of vampiric creation." By this time, Kain knew that it took much more to create a new vampire than the simple romanticized act of simply biting someone in the neck.

"Don't try to confuse me with such feigned sentimentality!" Vorador's said savagely, his voice rising in volume higher and higher. "What you really want is for me to make for you the army you desire."

He jabbed an angry talon in the youth's direction.

"You want me to create new vampires just so you can use them as cannon fodder! Your motives are, as always, painfully transparent!"

The past Kain looked at Vorador with something very close to deep contempt, lips drawn back over his fangs almost in a snarl. His gauntleted hand clasped the hilt of the Soul Reaver tight.

"You fool." His voice was soft but brimming with venom. "You old fool. You think you can just hide here forever… in this descript and stinking swamp? " He picked up the sword in one hand and swept it around, gesturing with it to the ruined hall and by extension the entire dying estate.

"Did the embrace of death teach you nothing? We must strike at them first, make them fear us and respect us as they once did."

Without a moment's hesitation, Vorador lifted his hand and sent a bolt of energy directed down towards his arrogant visitor. It didn't strike the young Kain but at the floor just before where he stood. It exploded at the blast, chunks of wooden and blackened carpet exploding into the air.

The youth did not flinch but his eyes narrowed.

"Get you gone!" Vorador snapped savagely at him. "And take your barking stupidity with you!"

From above, Kain observed his younger self snort divisively and heft the Reaver up to carry it over one shoulder.

"Oh I will go Vorador… but this conversation is not over." He advised callously, half turning to leave. "One way or another, I will get what I need from you. You are simply too valuable to me."

With that he strode out of the hall, his proud arrogant back on Vorador. The ancient vampire did not wait for him to leave but rather left immediately himself, marching back through the door by which he had come with his human worshippers following behind him.

**_ "With the departure of my past self, I was free to leave the shadows. Little did my younger personage know that from this new race of vampires I was so desperate to create from Vorador, I would raise many who would betray me… Marcus, Faustus and Sebastian… trusted lackeys all until they turned on me to further their own ambitions. It was a blow to realise, years from their deaths at my hands, that my actions in the conquest of Nosgoth had been little better than their own."_**

Kain, leaving the hall, entered an antechamber just as Vorador came through another door entering as well. When he saw him, Vorador motioned for his two escorting worshipers to wait outside. They bowed low and left, leaving the two of them alone.

"Vorador…" Kain began, feeling some need for at least a basic explanation but the ancient held up a hand quickly.

"Be silent." He said coldly. His eyes were so penetrating and angry that Kain closed his mouth immediately despite himself.

"From that… rather interesting phenomenon I can deduce only one logical hypostatise." The ancient began slowly in a tone that set the mood of the discussion immediately. "The Kain I just sent away… is the young arrogant fool I know so well."

He kept his eyes solely on Kain's face.

"You; so evolved and matured, are who he will become in a time yet to come."

Kain managed an ironic but at the same time grim smile.

"And the question I must ask myself is why I continually underestimate your deductive reasoning?"

The ancient vampire snorted and began pacing.

"There are many magic's in this world that can do many strange and unbelievable things." He concluded with head tilted to one side.

"I don't know how you accomplished this feat, but are you not risking irreparable damage to the time stream?" He gestured back the way he had come. "After all you almost crossed paths with yourself."

"I know… but you needn't be concerned about the timeline." Kain assured him quickly. "From its perspective, I am little more than a misplaced cobblestone." He decided to omit the fact that between Raziel and himself, history had been changed quite a bit already.

"What is of importance however is the fact that my younger self was right… you must become the father of the next vampire race."

Vorador glared at him with disgust, eyes narrowed and brow drawn down. His entire being shook with suppressed rage. Then he controlled himself and he swung around to face Kain directly.

"And now we come to the true reason you urged me to leadership." He said. "So you can ensure that your own greedy ambition is sacrosanct in history."

Kain leaned forward slightly, arms spread in entreaty.

"Vorador… it's your destiny…" He began but the ancient cut him off.

"You would have me create vampires just to be used in war?" He asked, taking an angry step forward. He shook his head. "You fool Kain."

He broke away and began pacing again, another of his nervous habits Kain supposed, watching with suppressed amusement at the irritated flick of the ancient's large ears. Vorador paused in his passing after a while and took a deep breath.

"Do you know how and why Janos passed the dark gift on? He and no other of the ancients?" He asked then. "Do you know why all turned vampires were descended from him alone?"

That was a question Kain could not answer. In truth, the question had never actually occurred to him.

"It's because he was the only one who dared." Vorador said with a slump to his shoulders. "No other ancient could stomach what he did to keep our bloodline going. Janos Audron was reviled even by his own peers, condemned for the act of passing on our blood to humans."

Kain frowned at this intelligence.

"But he had no other choice. However publically reviled he was; he was needed to turn the human guardians into vampires when they went through puberty." Vorador carried on.

"And so you were his first? His guinea _pig_?" Kain asked. The Ancient vampire did not rise to that insult.

"Even before I was turned he and I were like father and son." He said. "He explained to me exactly what he wanted to do… and I volunteered to be the first to be turned." His eyes fixed on Kain's. "That is what it means to create a new race. I will not sully the name of my sire by perverting it just so you can have an army."

Then he vanished, diapering into a green haze as he translocated away; using a short range spell to take him to the privacy of another room of the house.

**_ "With that final statement, Vorador left me alone to ponder this. I knew it to be his destiny, I knew that Vorador would make the race from which my first army would be made and then lost in battle against the Sarafan Lord. _**

**_It was essential that he be convinced to join with my younger self, both in creating the vampire race and in cooperating to defeat the Sarafan during their forthcoming rule."_**


	9. Blood Kin

It was still raining when the sun began to rise in the early morning and Kain stood on a balcony overlooking the estates inner courtyard, leaning on the Reaver and watching the scurrying activity of the worshippers with a certain air of grim dissatisfaction about him.

**_ "Vorador would not be swayed; least of all it seemed by me. Of course it was to be expected. The creation of a new race, a new family of vampires was not a task undertaken lightly. The bond between fledgling and sire was so acute and strong that the affection could last century upon century. He would need more than the power crazed ravings of my former self to spur him into this act."_**

Beyond the estate walls, the swamp and far stretching forest was far from being devoid of activity either. Vorador had driven the marauding hunters out of his domain with a passion but although they were trying to keep quiet, there were traces of their broken troops out there. It was only a matter of time until they regrouped, gathered greater forces and returned.

The worshipers however were definitely planning on leaving before that happened.

**_"By all logic I should leave this place. Vorador had given me enough to work with when he told me of the first balance Guardian and these Tablets of Dark Fable. Yet still some compulsion forced me to stay, to dwell here a little longer and observe. Something important, beyond the resurrection of Vorador, was meant to take place here but as to what this event was I could not be certain."_**

He growled and began tightening and relaxing his grip on the Reaver's hilt, a nervous gesture that helped him relax his tension.

**_ "The sensation of oncoming upheaval was not a pleasant one and I resolved to keep one eye cast over my shoulder."_**

Hearing footsteps behind him, Kain glanced back over his shoulder and his expression turned grim when he saw Vorador coming out through a doorway. The ancient vampire was equally grave and they had kept a respectful distance from each other ever since the unexpected visit from Kain's former self.

"Hmmth… still here are you?" Vorador asked with his tone just on the verge of insulting.

"I feel no pressing need to carry on with my journey so immediately." Kain replied, matching the lack of civility. Vorador's left ear twitched but he did not rise to that. Instead he came over and stood beside Kain, looking across the remains of his estate which were being slowly claimed by the swamp.

"If you're lingering to convince me to comply then you are waiting your time." He remarked. "My loyal worshippers and I are preparing to leave."

Kain shot him a glare.

"To go into hiding?" He asked with distaste.

Vorador frowned. "Where else would you have us go?" He demanded. "You will not have me swayed."

Kain turned away from him, sheathing the Reaver across his back and leaning his arms across the broken stone rail.

"I know you better than that. I tried to reason and if that's not going to work… then something else will come along to convince you anyway." He said in an offhand way.

"I doubt it."

"It's your destiny." Vorador frowned at this and looked up at the sky.

"You say that overmuch."

At this Kain managed a winsome grin.

"I've already seen you do it, Vorador."

The ancient vampire was silent, digesting this fact. His expression gradually turned grimmer but then lightened. He drew in breath and exhaled sharply.

"And perhaps I will… but not for your army." He eventually said. "When and if I give life to more of our kind will be decided by me and not some puffed up fledgling with a thirst for power."

Kain simply shrugged.

"As you say Vorador... as you say…" He said in resignation. Vorador looked at him sceptically.

"You still do not look entirely satisfied." Kain pursed his lips at this.

"The information you have given me leaves me with a question I can not answer." He admitted. "Where do I go from here? The tablets on which is recorded the destiny of the Scion of Balance may have been lost eons ago."

Those tablets could be the key to his destiny, the long lost destiny Moebius and the False God had denied to him. The destiny he had sacrificed an empire and his first born son for.

"You are speaking to the wrong person Kain." Vorador sighed. "I can not know everything." Then he paused and looked thoughtful. "…. Although…"

Kain looked around at him.

"Although what?"

Vorador looked reluctant to answer that question and only hesitantly he replied;

"There may be one who might be able to direct you."

"Who?" Kain asked slowly with a raised eyebrow, his developed instinct for possible trouble alerting him.

"There is in this world a being older than myself… older even than my sire." The ancient vampire explained. "She was there when Ba'al transcribed the prophecy." Kain blinked in sudden wonder. "She is a…"

"A Seer." He finished for him. Vorador looked at him in surprise.

"You know her?" He asked in clear confusion and bafflement.

**_"The Seer… The strange woman whom one day Vorador would send me in search of, to find information on the Hylden's ultimate weapon; the Device. She had sent me to the weapon but had vanished when the Sarafan Lord had attacked her abode in the southern canyons; attempting to burn to ashes both me and the seer. I had thought her a strange creature, perhaps gifted with foresight, but this new hint of her true importance was an interesting development."_**

"She and I have met… or will meet." He said, putting his hand to his chin and tapping his cheek with one talon. "She was there? She lived amongst the ancients?"

Vorador chuckled.

"That would not be the way I would put it." The ancient vampire replied. "She was no more welcome amongst our ancestors than would be the unspoken themselves. Even Janos despised her." A cheeky sort of amused grin crossed Vorador's face. " She and Ba'al often met for long, private discussions. The gossip that resulted from that scandalous behaviour was somewhat entertaining."

Sharing his amusement, Kain tilted his head back.

"More scandalous than your human adoption?"

Vorador's own smile dropped instantly but Kain cavalierly maintained his own.

"Had Ba'al not been the Balance Guardian he might well have been attacked in the streets for it." He replied on without rising to the insult. "But he was well enough loved for his leadership that he could afford the risk. But if anyone can give you more specifics on his stories it would be her."

Kain was silent to ponder this information.

When he had first met the seer she had known who he was with a single glance. He had been hard pressed at the time in his quest to destroy the Sarafan and their puppeteers the Hylden and had not before considered this abnormality. If this odd woman had indeed been there when the prophecy had been written down then it was completely possibly, in fact quite likely, that not only had she known who he was but had been waiting for him.

Such behaviour Kain had only credited before to Moebius and it left a sour taste in his mouth for the direction this might take him. Now that he had finally rid himself of one manipulator he did not so soon want to be burdened with another.

**_ "Suddenly there was a scream, the high pitched wail of terror that I knew all too well to be the screams of horror emitted by human beings."_**

Vorador glanced up in alarm, his ears erect instantly.

"The hunters dare return?" He asked rhetorically in a savage voice. Kain looked around, glaring down the estate towards the far wall. The smell of freshly spilled blood was suddenly thick in the air.

Vorador sniffed and then his eyes widened in utter horror.

"Umah!" He declared, even as he vaulted over the stone banister and jumped down to the courtyard below. Kain followed him instantly, but found himself a little hard pressed to keep up with the frantic pace the ancient vampire set.

Together they bolted across the courtyard to the far building where the worshippers had been gathered in their preparation to depart. The doors were shut and Kain suspected, bolted.

Vorador did not bother even trying them but raised his talons and sent a bolt of concentrated force directly into the wooden barrier. The door cracked at the impact and fell inward with a loud crash,

Beyond was carnage, the bodies of several worshippers lay slumped in blood soaked black robes against the wall. Their insides had been carved out and splattered across the floor.

Vorador followed the trail of gore without a moment's hesitation and following, Kain came with him out into a large antechamber with torn and scrapped walls and a dirty ceiling.

He took an involuntary step back at the sight that created him.

**_"These creatures, for there was no other word, were unlike any beings I had ever seen. They walked like men but slouched moving with jerking motions, as if their bodies were forced to the work. Their armour was so archaic that its nature was beyond my knowledge. For a brief moment I pondered if this was another case of Hylden using the bodies of the dead as vessels. But some deep instinct within told me this was something different, something more."_**

Whatever these things were they looked human, but their faces were completely emotionless and static. Their skins were sewn together at various places, almost as if it had been stitched back into place. Over their bodies they wore armour that had the faintest resemblance to those of Sarafan, but far more uniform and less emphasised on angelic iconography.

It consisted of a single piece steel breastplate with chainmail greaves and a short paid of pauldrons. They all wore helmets with cheek guards but a few of them were plumed.

There were about four of them and in each of their hands they held a short blade, ideal of close range combat and not as cumbersome as some of the heavier claymore swords.

About their entire being was suffused a faint pale yellow glow, their eyes dull white as if blind.

"Homunculi!" Vorador snarled.

Kain had heard of such creature but never seen one, finding them only vaguely referred to in whatever scrolls and tomes had been left over from the ancients. No details but rather a simply reference to them as a type of golem, similar to the stone and steel automatons used to protect the ancient's sites of importance

At the feet of these Homunculus were more of the gutted bodies of the worshippers, all of them ripped to pieces as if set upon by wild animals. All but one; Umah, who lay in a corner with bleeding arms raised before her. Around her body she cast a spell I had used myself more than once, the aegis of Repel.

She was weak from the strain of maintain the defensive barrier and from her already recently loss of blood. Her skin was so pale to be called white, her hair out of its usual plat streaking down the sides of her face.

Each of these strange creatures turned their heads to look at the newcomers. In a synchronized and flat, emotionless voice they declared;

_"Mors mortuibus!" _

It was the old language, the tongue of the ancients. Kain knew enough of it to understand.

**_"The words: Mors mortuibus, Death for the Dead." _**

Vorador drew his blade in one swift motion, his serrated steel blade swinging through the air. It came down sharply on the nearest Homunculus, slicing down from the shoulder to the crotch. As the being was cleaved in two, Kain saw that it's inside were like liquid an the outside appearance of flesh was little more than a illusion.

As it fell apart, one with a plumed helmet raised its hand to the ancient vampire and said something in the language that Kain did not recognise.

There was a spark and then a sudden flash and Vorador was sent hurtling through the air and then out the window. As the ancient disappeared in a shower of glass, Kain drew the Reaver.

It screamed with anticipation as Kain darted forward far quicker than these creatures could react. Indentifying the one with the plumed helmet as the superior risk, he drove the Reaver straight through its chest, angling the blade up into the head. The liquid insides of these creatures poured out from the wound and the Reaver let out a small, disappointed wail of frustration.

There was nothing for it to devour in this creature. Like the golems of the vampires these puppets were animated not by a soul but by some other arcane means. Savagely he ripped the blade to one side, the action carving the Homunculus in two and letting its liquid inside a foul smelling white ichor to spill over the blood smeared floor.

The two others drew their blades and advanced on Kain.

_"Mors mortuibus, Mors mortuibus!"_ They recanted again and again.

Kain grabbed the nearest around the head as it tried to stab him with its blade and with force, he swung it down into the floor. The impact shattered its head and the Homunculus exploded into its liquids.

In the same motion, Kain swung back up and stabbed the last of these abominations through the neck with the Reaver. The Homunculus struggled even with the blade lodged in its throat. It only became still when Kain slammed a kick through its chest, smashing in its body and letting the insides pour out.

As the last of them collapsed into disgusting remains, Kain drew the Reaver back and sheathed it across his back.

Turning, he saw Umah's shield drop and she slumped against the side of the wall where she had been crotched. The smell of fresh blood was all to clear and her robes were stained afresh with blood. She had been injured.

Kain advanced over. In her semi conscious state Umah could barely see him as he gathered her body up in his arms and looked her over. She had been cut several times with blades across her chest and she had lost a lot of blood.

Too much blood.

She was dying.

**_ "Umah lay there, the light fading from her eyes. Gathering her up, I held her; watching as she died. I knew precisely what I had to do for now there could no question."_**

This realization was like a knife suddenly twisting inside Kain's brain, undeniable logic which brought him nothing but pure horror. This was an event which must not be for Umah had to live for her to play her part in his own destiny but the implications of what he must do to correct it were so staggering that every instinct screamed out against it.

**_"Vorador would not reach her in time and here I was… cradling her broken battered body as she died. My very soul screamed in agony as I did the only thing I could do."_**

He bit her. He sank his fangs into her neck, offering her the sweet embrace of the dark gift. Her eyes widened and her mouth became agape. Kain did not drink her blood for that action would have killed her in his present condition but rather instead simply let part of his energy flow from himself to her.

Devoid of the poison of Nupraptor's madness, her creation would be untainted and free from the threat of devolving horror that had beset the vampires of his empire. When he drew back from her neck, he held his wrist over her mouth and with one talon he cut himself. The injury was fleeting and would heal nearly instantly but it last just long enough for a quantity of his blood to drop into her agape mouth.

She swallowed on reflex, his blood becoming hers in this action.

Kain held her, watching without blinking once. The change began instantly, perhaps hastened by her dire need for restoration.

Her wounds began to heal, closing up and although her colour did not improve her form changed; her ears twisting to attain a point and her canine teeth elongating inside her mouth.

There was another shattering of glass and Vorador leaped back up into the room sword in hand, cut in several pieces by shards of the window pane. He swung about, looking this way and that for the enemy who he expected to be there but instead found only their sloppy remains on the floor.

Then he turned.

"Umah!" He began moving towards them but stopped when Kain turned around.

Umah was unconscious in his arms and her change was clear. "Umah?" Vorador's tone was now less sure.

He looked upon her and then his eyes slowly wandered up to Kain's face, his expression one of clear awe and shock.

"Kain you…did you?"

**_"I said nothing. No words could have explained what I had just done. I had completed a circle of love and betrayal. I had given her new life knowing full well that I had already ripped it from her. Vorador and I had both created this soul together."_**

He set her down on the floor before her master.

**_"Any guilt I had had over what I had done to her in retaliation for her theft of the Nexus Stone was augmented a hundred fold. I had defied the dictates of my stars and in spiteful retaliation they had cursed me to forever bare the knowledge that I had killed yet another one of my own."_**


	10. Vorador remember's

The two wolves that bounded southward, passing out of the southern reaches of the forest and up into the flood plains below moved far quicker than any beast of the forest, racing alongside one another in a savage blur they covered much distance with ease. They stayed to the wild, avoiding the trodden paths and roads and staying clear whenever a party of vampire hunters came within sight.

Skirting the plains they travelled south until the terrain became rocky and dry and angled up onto a large rocky plateau overlooking the land. After this point the great canyons opened up like wounds in the earth itself.

The pair of wolves travelled on, pressing deeper into this unknown land. Here there was no rule of kings or earls or even men. The wild held dominion here and had always done so even with the petty encroachments of human and vampire alike.

At some point, the wolves came to a sudden stop in this long and uninterrupted journey. The one in the lead sniffed at the ground for a moment and then looked down over the edge of the cliff, down into the deep ravine below.

Something of a smile broke its lips and then it changed, shifting back into the crouched form of Vorador.

As the ancient vampire straightened and stood up, the second wolf changed as well. Kain flexed his shoulders to alleviate the feeling of displacement in his bones and came over to join Vorador's side as they looked down into the canyon.

The twilight stars were just beginning to peek through the dark sky, the full moon sliding up on the horizon.

The origin of the Homunculi which had chosen to invade the estate back in the swamp had not been resolved.

Their arrival and attack had worried Kain. Mindless automatons like those creatures do not operate on their own. Some intelligence guided them remotely.

But who… and why?

Was it the False God… or the Hylden? Or something new? It seemed that this game became more complex with each new development.

All he could do at this point was press on with his own quest and wait until he had more information.

There was the …'other'… matter as well that for the moment both he and Vorador were staunchly avoiding in their discussions.

"Here." Vorador said, pointing down with a talon into the canyon. Kain followed his haze, squinting.

"I see nothing." He as eventually forced to admit.

"That is the beauty of this place." The ancient vampire said. "It was made as to be concealed from prying eyes, its presence hidden by the land itself."

Kain narrowed his eyes sceptically at the ravine bellow. A thick grove of evergreens lined the floor, running up the sides of the rocky face whenever the terrain allowed it. The cliff itself was jagged, deep shadows formed by the irregular rocks.

**_ "The southern canyons and ravines that stretched from the flood plain upon which was built the capital of Meridian to the far distant Lake of Serenity and Willendorf was a dry and dusty land, filled with jagged cliffs and deep dark gullies For the desperate merchant it might provide a quicker trade route between east and west. For bandits, it was a prime place to set up their ambushes."_**

Kain glanced up along the canyon, seeing it stretch off all the way to the horizon. The canyons were like giant claw marks in the ground, carved into the plateau with inter connecting ravines, valleys and cliffs. Without a marked path for a guide it was entirely possible to keep wandering around these canyons forever.

**_"I had met the Seer here once before, at her rickety shack overlooking the great southern sea. But Vorador had not led me to that place but rather to where he assured me the Seer dwelt in this period. If she could provide me direction to the Tablets of Dark Fable then I would find her."_**

Vorador slid down the side of the cliff, moving with an agility that rivalled Kain's own as he bounded from rock to rock. Kain quickly followed, the two of them sliding down the sheer cliff wall. Soon they past into the line of trees, the thick pines casting dark shadows on the ground.

Kain observed Vorador as the ancient took the lead, his hand held out in front of him as he took note of little things on the ground that might mean a trail to him.

"I still don't see anything." He remarked, following Vorador up to a place where a thick clump of trees was clustered around the bottom of a large set of rocky columns that stretched all the way up to the canyon top.

Vorador looked them up and down and smiled.

"That's because you're not looking correctly." He remarked and then sat down on a rock. "Now we wait."

"Wait?" Kain asked impatiently. "After coming all this way?"

Vorador chuckled.

"It's almost dark enough." He said, looking up "Have patience and you'll see."

With a scowl Kain sat down and crossed his arms in front of his chest. And so the two of them sat in silence Vorador with his face raised to look at the sky and Kain sunk in sullen annoyance.

**_ "If the seer was here, she would answer my questions. But there was some information Vorador could give me right now that I would certainly need."_**

"Vorador…" He began and the older vampire turned to look at him. "What can you tell me about the beliefs of the ancestors?"

Vorador looked a bit confused.

"Beliefs?" He repeated with a twitch to his left ear.

"Their religion." Kain clarified and Vorador rocked back on his seat in understanding, both ears erect in attention.

"You didn't strike me as being particularly pious Kain, especially not for a belief system long since dead." He said. "Why do you bring up that particular topic?"

Kain shrugged.

"Call it a scholarly interest."

"You seem to have developed quite an uncharacteristic 'scholarly interest' since your fledgling days." Vorador remarked, that statement made all the more true by the contrast of this era's Kain who still expected Vorador to make for him an army. The ancient vampires tone was not overly disapproving however.

"I was never that interested in the faith of the ancients." He said with a slump to his shoulders. "It struck me as being quite backwards for a culture as advanced as theirs."

Kain nodded glumly in agreement. Of course he knew that the romanticised ideal of a perfectly noble, just and wholly decent people was a shame. No race was without their seedy underbelly, their mistakes and their misconceptions.

"And their god?" He asked, looking up at Vorador to study his expression. The elder vampire scowled then.

"You mean the Wheel of Fate."

The Wheel of Fate; yes that had been what Raziel had called it, the cycle of destiny; birth, death and rebirth. As much as Kain understood, it was this cycle that allowed the False God to feed on the souls of the dead. To this end the False God had been the prime mover in this game, manipulating Vampire, Human and even Hylden as pawns to create death on a large enough scale throughout history to feed him.

"That's dangerous Kain." Vorador was saying. "When they were cursed by the Unspoken their faith in the reincarnation delivered by the Wheel caused them to commit suicide en-mass."

Kain blinked and looked up.

"What?"

"They could not bare the new reality of immortality and its philosophical disconnection from their God. So strong was their belief and faith in such a divine system that separation was more than they could bear."

Kain was left dumfounded for a moment.

**_"So it was not shunning of the light nor even the blood thirst that had driven my ancestors to self destruction, but rather the immortality itself. This had been what had so utterly devastated them. The Hylden's curse had been poetically apt right down to the last detail."_**

He sat there, working through implications of such a thing. The Hylden were to blame for the curse there was no doubt about that, but had the ancients not held to their dogmatic beliefs than more of them might have survived than just Janos Audron.

**_"Had Raziel known this? Had he, while under the thumb of the False God, discovered its ancient crime against our race? This knowledge only deepened my resolve. Somehow, someday… I would make that disgusting cephalopod pay for what he had done to my people."_**

Vorador sighed and kicked at a rock near his feet, letting it roll in the dirt.

"One might ask of them why?" He said, asking the rhetorical question. "Why were they so loyal to the Wheel?"

The same question had occurred to Kain more than once after he had learned of his true enemy. They had been such an advanced culture with evidence left behind of advanced schools of philosophy and the sciences, an acute understanding of the nature of Mana and of course they were the creators of the Pillars themselves.

How could a race so wise and advanced be fooled like that?

"Religious indoctrination can dominate the mind of the unwary." He was forced to conclude with a weary sigh.

Vorador considered this and tapped a talon against the side of his face.

"More to it than that I think." He said. "I can only make a hypothesis in poor retrospect but I belief they were seduced by a promise of great rewards for service."

Kain looked at him quizzically.

"Their mythology was full of demi-gods, mortal heroes who served the One God in their own way and were each in turn elevated above mortals and given arcane powers to command." The elder vampire explained.

"That drove a lot of warriors during the ancient war to acts of zealot barbarism I think; the ideal that if they pleased their god enough he would grant them the same reward." He added as an after thought, glancing up along the cliff again.

Kain supposed that made sense. After all, there would have to have been a grand reward promised for the old liar to have enlisted Moebius as his servant. Immortality and god like power.

So in the end, Moebius' ideals deep down had never been about what he thought the right thing to do but rather came from a selfish desire for more power; power that not even his Guardianship of the Pillar of Time had given him.

Kain could not help but smile for he doubted that Moebius had earned such a reward. The delicious and humorous irony of Moebius being swallowed up by the Wheel of Fate he was so passionate in defending lifted Kain's spirits.

Vorador suddenly stood up.

"It is time." He said. "The light fades."

Kain stood up as well and as he did so, something strange began to happen.

**_"As I watched, the shadows of the trees all around us seemed to culminate at a certain point, almost joining together. This combined darkness pulled back across the surface of the cliff and revealed what had been hidden there. The cliff had been styled into an optical illusion so that in the light, be it sunlight or moon, it hide from view the entrance of some ancient ruin."_**

The cliff face itself warped the perception of those who looked upon it. The illusion was stunningly simple, objects and buildings placed just so as to use natural light to hide their presence. Even close up the illusion held strong, only to be banished by shadow.

As more and more of the ruin revealed itself, Kain's expression turned awestruck. He glanced up, watching building after building become perceptible all the way up to the top of the cliff.

Had one not already known where this place was then it would have been impossible to stumble across it by accident.

As he watched his expression began to change, changing as his face creased itself into a frown.

There were no markings on these ruins like there were often to be found with those of the ancient vampires. The buildings were more rounded whereas the ancients preferred angular architecture.

What drew Kain's immediate attention however were the two statues standing either side of the massive door leading into the interior of the cliff. They had no wings sprouting behind them, only two jagged growths out of the shoulder blades in their place. Their ears were quite large and angled up the side of the head and upon their brow they had a crest of bone.

**_"The architecture was not entirely foreign to me but I could tell that this was not crafted by the Ancient Vampires. This was the building work of the Hylden. Vorador had led me to one of the enemy race's long abandoned settlements, a fortress built for war right into the cliff itself."_**

"For the past two centuries, she has lived here." Vorador said, gesturing up towards the door. "I have no guarantee if she still dwells but if you seek her, she most likely lies within."


	11. The Forgotten Keep

Advancing inside the structure, the light of the stars and moon dimmed away and all but a few feet beyond the doorway was engulfed in darkness. Kain held out his hand to the shadows and banished it with the illumination of magical light, one of his oldest powers acquired when he had been just a fledgling. The interior of a large arched roof antechamber revealed itself to the two vampires as they advanced cautiously inside.

"Not many cities of the Unspoken were left when the Pillars were raised." Vorador said in a low voice as they looked around the ruins. The architecture was fused metal and stone, a union that produced many odd shapes and patterns to be seen.

"This one survived intact because of this hidden place and the illusionary defence." The ancient added, looking up at the ceiling that had an aged and rusted collection of spikes dangling from its apex.

"But that did not save its occupants from the Binding." Kain remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"Apparently not." His companion agreed morbidly.

Kain advanced in a few more feet, his steps kicking up clouds of dust from the floor which must have been previously undisturbed for centuries.

"And so where is the Seer?" He asked, looking back. "This complex must stretch on for miles into the cliff."

Vorador simply shrugged.

"She'll be here somewhere." He said somewhat vaguely. "She may already know of our presence."

The Scion of Balance looked forward again, studying the darkness where the range of his spell did not reach. Indeed there could be much lurking in the darkness, stealthily moving around to find better places for ambush.

"Our only recourse therefore is to look around and wait for her to come to us." Vorador added. That particular course of action did not entirely appeal to Kain, but still in present circumstances what choice did he have?

"And will she?" He asked without looking back.

"She and I have a history." Vorador said. With one wave of his hand he conjured his own magical illumination, adding his own light to reveal the way. "She will come… if only perhaps to pay her respects to me."

Kain rolled his eyes and began walking off

"Oh how clever." He muttered.

"These ancient corridors have half a mountain on top of them." Vorador added quickly, making Kain stop. "It is best to stay away from unstable looking places and if you must speak then communicate through the Whisper." He emphasised he words by tapping the side of his head. "We must not risk a collapse while we are here."

Kain nodded once and then carried on towards the end of the chamber and another large door leading further in, leaving Vorador to explore through a side corridor that opened out to the right.

Deeper inside, the dust was nearly ankle deep and climbing over fallen debris and broken floor tiles Kain began his exploration of the forgotten keep.

The buildings of this Hylden city were stacked on atop the other with suspended walkways all connecting them to large plazas also suspended one above the other. The style seemed almost to copy that of the ancient Vampires to a certain extent, although there were stairs leading up to the higher to reach platforms.

Here Kain saw his first example of Hylden everyday life. From the crumbling remains of their personal affects Kain could see that they were a people who did not live simply. They had had a great many complex utensils and tools, some for tasks that Kain could identify and others guess at.

Rising through the city moving up the various levels he discovered a sort of social structure. The dwellings for the masses were at the bottom. Just above them were rooms that looked reserved for the use of healers and doctors. Above them were clear workshops where there were many more tools all laid out in dust covered rows on shelves and work surfaces.

There were also a few papers lying on these desks, probably work notes from whatever Hylden Alchemist or Chemist worked here once, but they crumbled into useless fragments as soon as he touched them.

All of this showed him that at one time the Hylden culture had been just as rich and vibrate as that of the Ancients. But perhaps sadly it might have all been lost upon their imprisonment in the demon realm.

Then rising above this level he came across something quite surprising. One entire level had been given over to what could only be a temple. Its religious importance was all to clear from the symbolism of a circular icon above the entrance.

It would seem the Hylden were far from the godless heathens the vampire murals had made them out to be. Grimly he advanced inside.

The temple itself was large with a high walls running down either side to the alter on a raised dais in the middle of the room.

There were many stone benches facing towards that alter; mostly intact but for a few with cracked surfaces due to the ravages of time.

Kain was far less interested in the room itself than at what he saw on the walls.

**_"And here I discovered something that I thought I would never see. Something the Hylden and the Ancient Vampires had in common. These murals, just like those in the ruins of my ancestors, depicted the events, achievements and culture of the Hylden who lived here."_**

Like many a ruin of his ancestors he had visited before, the walls were decorated with pictures. While the ancient vampires mostly painted their imagery, the Hylden used a curious sort of artwork created by the use of various types of ink sunk into the stone itself.

The imagery was a bit hard to understand, with many straight lines shooting off in a dozen directions all at once and only vaguely resembling the objects they were depicting.

Then he saw a figure with cloven hands and feathered wings and using that familiar icon as a Rosetta stone, he began to translate the rest.

**_"In these ancient pictures I had the unique opportunity to see the conflict that ripped apart the old world from the other side. The Hylden's perception of my ancestors was that of a ravaging force of black winged terror that descended upon them from the skies, carrying away the innocent to be sacrificed to their god."_**

With a frown he ran his hand over the image of a Hylden child being slaughtered by a Vampire lynching party all armed with spears. The artist had left very little to the imagination with the liberal use of blood and gore.

**_"As much as I wanted not to I could not help but realise that, even if these images were exaggerated, there was more than a grain of truth to them."_**

With a shake of his head he moved on, crossing the temple to examine more of the murals. With a start he recognised a figure displayed proudly just behind the alter; a titanic being with fiery eyes and a sword of flame.

**_"Ah yes…The Hylden's own grain of hope. Janos would perhaps have been chagrined to know that he was not the only one awaiting the messiah Raziel might be."_**

The murals all told more or less the same story but after studying them further, he began to notice a recurring theme. ****

In each depicted scene there were two circles superimposed. One circle on the bottom and another circle at the top, elliptical and each with a unique artistic look to them.

The circle at the bottom was surrounded by many smaller circles and within the centre it connected to a central point.

After staring at it a moment Kain realised it to be a warped version of the same icon he had seen in the Ancient Citadel of Tears, the symbol of the Wheel of Fate.

The upper circle was quite different, with angular fin like appendages lancing out along the outside turning clockwise. Within was a simple spiral, circling down to the central point.

The bottom circle was darkened while the one above was highlighted in white. This seemed significant yet Kain could not immediately fathom why.

_=Kain… I have found evidence of recent occupation here.=_ Vorador's voice Whispered to him, a soft voice in the vault of his mind.

_= Good, then she is still here. I will join you shortly.= _Kain replied and turned to make use of a door at the far side of the temple.

He could sense where Vorador vaguely was in the structure and began to make his way down the mass of walkways and dusty corridors in that direction.

As he made his way down he entered another chamber on the healer's level. This room had a large selection of tools laid out and upon the walls were similar murals as in the temple above, only with far different subject matter.

**_"This image left me baffled as to its meaning. It showed a Hylden warrior standing atop a cliff, arms outstretched. The bony structures sprouting from his back appeared enlarged and distended outward. It almost seemed as if he were preparing himself for flight."_**

Kain glanced up along the walls to see more of the images which he began to understand were some type of record, equivalent to the notes made by doctors and healers. The language and runic form of script however was unfamiliar to him. Still puzzled, he carried on and it was not long before he found Vorador again.

The ancient vampire was waiting for him in a large chamber deeper within the complex. The room was so large that the light of their combined spells did not fully illuminate it.

_= Ah good you are here.= _Vorador began, still whispering when Kain approached. Kain could see instantly why he chose to keep their conversation silent. The side support columns around the outside of the chamber were compromised.

On several of the broken columns were left the remains of pieces of Hylden pottery, newly brushed for

_=As you can see the dust here has been moved recently and here look, a trail.= _

He gestured down at the ground before him and following his gaze Kain could see disturbances in the dust up ahead, foot prints to be sure but to slender a size to belong to either Vorador or himself.

_= And fairly recent disturbances by the look of it= _He replied, gently following the footprints and taking special care not to disturb the evidence of the trail. _=She can not be far away.=_

Kain took several cautious steps with Vorador following behind him. Suddenly the Reaver across his blade hummed and almost vibrated against his skin; the eyes of the skull hilt glowing brightly in warning.

Kain straightened in alarm, preparing to jump back but his reflexes were not quick enough. A circle of light surrounded him on the floor, cutting him off from Vorador who stumbled back as if pushed by some invisible force. As the ancient vampire fell to the floor, Kain turned back but even as he did everything turned to white.

**_"My surroundings whirled and Vorador disappeared into the sudden white haze that surrounded me. Too late did I realise what had happened. I had set foot upon a transportation platform, an ancient device that moved physical objects from one location to another."_**

As Kain recovered himself, he found that as he had thought he had indeed been moved. The dead and dusty interior of the Forgotten Keep was gone and he was in some round antechamber, far cleaner although still of Ancient Hylden construction. The walls of this new place were lined with well preserved murals of Hylden warriors, each of them carrying a unique trophy in one hand. The head of an ancient vampire, the eyes of another and the even the wing bones of yet another.

At the far side of the chamber a set of spiral stairs led up to a doorway suspended a good twenty feet into the wall.

Taking a moment to survey his surroundings, Kain frowned. He could not contact Vorador using the whisper. Some outside force in this place was blocking him.

"Oh how suitably inviting."

Suddenly, in the air before him dust began to swirl. Four vortexes of particles spinning around faster and faster, their substance apparently appearing directly out of thin air.

Kain instinctively drew the Reaver in one fluid motion as these foul winds began to culminate, growing together and forming each in turn a figure clad in archaic armour.

The Homunculi had returned and now there could be no question in Kain's mind that these mindless beings were agents of his enemy.

Their apparent leader in the ragged plumed helmet and eyes glowing lurched forward, raising one hand to point at him.

_"Mors mortuibus_!" It declared and in unison the others formed close ranks, swords drawn.

Kain set his claymore at eye level, muscles tensed.

"Come then... and let us see the dead die."


	12. The Seer

The Leading homunculi lashed out, sending a bolt of condensed magical energy directly at Kain. In retaliation the vampire contemptibly intercepted it with a focused burst of telekinetic force, the two forces meeting in mid air and cancelling each other out with a crash.

Using this as momentary cover, Kain lunged forward and jabbed the Reaver into the chest of his first opponent. The tip of the serpentine blade burst out the far side of the creature in a spray of its liquid insides.

Kain brought the sword sharply to the left, slicing the homunculus in half and it fell down dead at his feet its companions joined together in a frantic attack. Whoever controlled these puppets knew that their only chance for defeating him laid in swarming him under with their sheer numbers and directed them thus.

One grabbed Kain around the waist. Another tackled him from behind, grabbing his hair and shoulders. The third clung savagely to his sword arm as if trying to pry the Reaver out of his grip.

Snarling, Kain reached around with his free hand and grabbed the creature on his back around the neck. With his vice like rip he cursed it and then pulled the slackening body off. This he used almost like a club, swinging with twitching body around to smack into the homunculi attached to his other arm.

The two of them exploded in a disgusting display of their liquid interiors, their outer shells crumbling into the goo and growing brittle almost like clay.

The last remaining creature had the opportunity however to stab Kain through the middle with its short sword. It was not a serious wound for a vampire o Kain's statue but it irritated him enough as to make his response a little crude.

He simply slammed the hilt of the Reaver directly into the creatures face and as it staggered back, Kain kicked it to the ground.

It struggled to rise but the vampire pinned its head to the floor with his talons and then stamped, his talons bursting through the head and crushing it into pulp. The body writhed briefly then collapsed, its shell becoming fragile and then breaking apart to let its insides spill out.

Kain took a moment to recover himself and to check the wound he had received. It was healing but after so long a trip here he would soon need to feed to replace lost energies.

"I can not tell you how long it has been, the wait I have endured for you." A voice began suddenly, echoing out from the doorway above. Kain glanced up and frowned. In one bound he cleared the stair and stood on the threshold.

Beyond was another, larger chamber. It had an arched roof with pillar supports at each corner, each imitating a Hylden warrior or other important figure. A large char stood at the far side of the room, delicately embroidered with clothe that might once have been fine silk but by how had rotted away to clearly nothing. If Kain were to hazard a guess at this places function he might be tempted to believe this to be a throne room of some kind for whatever Hylden Lord had once ruled the Forgotten Keep.

"Yet it seems time means nothing to you, Scion of Balance." Out from behind the throne, strode a lustrous figure with swaying hips. Her hair was short and chestnut brown against creamy, even ivory skin. Her eyes were a deep purple and her legs were long and well shaped. Her other, less human features were far more apparent.

**_"And here at last was the woman herself, the mysterious Seer whose incite might lead me to the Tablets of Dark Fable. But after so long playing the pawn I was no fool and knew better than to take anything she might say to me at face value."_**

Kain eyed her almost suspiciously as she approached.

"You know I am?" He asked. The Seer kept his expression neutral but her eyes were cold and unfriendly.

"And what you are." She said. Her accent was a strange one that Kain never heard from anyone else.

"Which would mean when I met you before; you were insincere in your self portal of an abnormal hermit." He pondered, thinking out load.

"Met before?" She asked, circling him to examine his body with a critical eye. "This is the first time I have laid eyes on you, Scion."

Kain chuckled almost to himself.

"Oh we have met, or will meet." He said, tilting his head to one side. "For me our meeting is ancient past but for you it is yet to come."

The Seer stopped pacing and assumed a supercilious look.

"You speak in riddles like some doddering soothsayer." She accused but then smiled faintly. "And I thought that was my livelihood."

"Enough banter." Kain remarked then, deciding to cut to the point. "You knew I was coming I take it."

"Naturally." The woman shrugged and strode over to the old throne. "I have been observing you and my old friend Vorador since you entered this place."

Kain had suspected that for quite a while and frowned at this confirmation of his own fears.

"And are you responsible for those creatures that dog me?" He asked, gesturing back the way he had come.

"The homunculi?" She looked actually offended at the idea. "I was almost about to ask you about them. Their arrival here was as just as a surprise to me as they are to you." She waved off that concern with a toss of her head, clearing some hair out of her eyes. "After all they are left over weapons of your race, not mine."

This last remarked caused Kain a small amount of confusion. He blinked trying to understand but then cast a glance up to the likeness of the Hylden images around the chamber.

Suddenly his eyes widened and he cast a glance between her and the likeness. The head ridges, enlarged ears and back protrusions.

There could be only one logical conclusion to draw.

"You're Hylden; aren't you?" He asked, perhaps a bit foolishly.

"Was it not immediately apparent?" The seer asked back, gesturing down at her body, her tone almost taunting.

**_"Before me stood a representative of the enemy race. That I had been too blind to see it before struck me dumb." _**

Kain stared for a moment before he recovered himself. He cleared his throat and frowned, feeling utterly foolish for such an unforgivable oversight.

"I have seen many Hylden in my life time." He began, remembering those creatures and beings he had faced eons when he destroyed the Mass and assaulted the Hylden City. "Yet they were all hideous, monstrous…"

"And ugly?" She cut him off sharply. "What you have seen vampire, and what you see before you, is a travesty and the plight of my species." She looked up towards the images carved all around them. "I escaped the Binding and so have never been to that hellish realm where the rest of my civilisation was banished. What you see here is the only remaining example of how my people used to be."

Kain observed the images more closely, taking more detailed note of the far fairer features in contrast of the almost scared appearance of the invader who took orders from the Hylden General.

"Prolonged exposure to the demon realm warps the occupants, mind, body and soul." The Seer explained a bit wearily.

**_"The words of the taunting Hylden came back to me, declaring that my fair form would disappear in the demon realm followed by my very sanity. I paused to contemplate such a terrible fate, doomed to decaying ugliness and madness for all eternity. Such a sentence might well have been earned later but still the mere thought of this being inflicted on an entire race was one I could not in good faith call just."_**

He shook his head.

"If you are trying to make me feel guilty, need I point out that it was your people who left mine as predators of the night?" He asked rhetorically, patting his own chest. "In cosmic circle of karma I think our two races are just about even."

The Seer let out a short chuckle.

"Possibly." She conceded with a sad smile. "My people brought most of it on themselves, this I will not deny." When Kain looked at her blankly she carried on. "Did you know how my kind became exempt from the Wheel of Fate?" She asked. "It was we who first opened the way to the Demon Realm and it was our alchemists who discovered that binding ourselves to it's energies provided us with immortality."

Kain pondered this new information, wondering at it and realising that perhaps this had been what the Sarafan Lord had meant in his final moments when he had claimed that their banishment ensured his peoples immortality.

"And so when the Pillars were raised, your people were damned to the hell of their own making." He eventually concluded.

"One might put it that way." The seer said glumly but then frowned at him. "Your kind left us with no other choice. It was either that or forced conversion." But then she seemed to remember some degree of manners and sighed. "But I digress; you are here for a purpose other than to argue about irrelevant points."

Kain nodded, his mind now back to the business at hand.

"My visions are clouded, ransom, formless… all but one. The Scion of Balance, who would come to me for aide in his quest." She said looking up at him.

"So you know why I am here and what I have come for?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

"There can only be one thing you can come to me for Scion.

He held up a hand.

"My name is Kain." He said. While Scion of Balance was quite a flattering title, if used too often it could get monotonous." The Seer smiled.

"Kain, then." She agreed. "You seek from knowledge of the Tablets created by the first Balance Guardian."

Kain smiled.

"Then you know where they are?" He asked eagerly. To his disappointment she chuckled and shook her head.

"Sadly no, I do not." She sighed. "The Tablets were long eons ago, during the human uprising against your blue skinned ancestors." Then her smile spread. "But… I can tell you 'when' you might find them."

Kain raised an eyebrow. "When?" He repeated.

The seer walked over and looked him directly in the face.

"You have the aura of the Chronoplast all over you, you have seen it, learned how to use it." This comment took Kain aback.

He had assumed, falsely now it seemed, that with Moebius finally dead the Chronoplast time streaming chamber was his little secret. "I can give you the settings so that the machine will take you to the era when the tablets were still owned by the vampires and in that time you might be able to retrieve them."

The proposition was quite tempting. But Kain knew that this was not the beneficent offer it seemed to be.

"I sense a condition for this intelligence." He said dryly.

"You are quite perceptive." She said with sly eyes. "The humans have a saying… something for something, nothing for nothing." Her tone was suggestive. "If you want those settings then there is something I would like for you to do for me first."

Kain scowled at her.

"I do not run errands." He said firmly.

"This is no errand. I wish only for you to share that which is in your possession and can freely be given to those who seek it."

Kain watched as she extended her hand forward to him, her expression changed to one of awed hope. Clearly this had been what she had been building up to and waiting for.

"Purify me Kain, lift the veil from my sight so that I may finally be able to see clearly." She asked, saying it almost pleading.

"What?" Kain asked slowly.

"The purifying power of spirit lies within you. Share a small portion of it with me and what you seek I will give you with my blessing."

The Vampire looked down at her hand and then up at her again, looking into her eyes and seeing the desperate hope there.

Grimly he set his jaw and reaching forward he took her hand in his.

**_"As I took her hand, the strangest sensation welled up within me. For the first time since Raziel had sacrificed himself, I actually felt the flowing power of Spirit coursing through my very veins. It was almost a physical sensation as it passed through our contact and into her."_**

The Hylden seer gasped audibly, eyes wide as invisibly her soul was a washed with purifying energy. The veil was lifted from her sight and a look of such wonder came over her that Kain felt almost captivated by the moment himself.

"Oh… it's so wonderful…" She breathed. "It's so warm and…and…" Then something happened, her eyes grew troubled and distant. "What….no…"

The look of awe on her face stopped abruptly and after a moment of hesitation instantly fell away to stunned horror.

**_"I knew what she saw for that look was all too familiar. Somehow, perhaps through transferred memories, she had caught a glimpse of the terrible form of the False God."_**

Sharply she drew her hand away from his, almost cringing.

"Is... is that what it looks like?!" She asked in a choked voice, trembling uncontrollably.

"I have a good eye for details." Kain told her seriously.

"I could never have imagined such a monstrosity even in my darkest nightmares." She began. Still shaking she went over to the throne and sat down, holding her head in her hands. This moment that she had been anticipating had an unexpected bitter aftertaste for her.

After she took a moment to control herself she looked up again.

"But… but you have fulfilled your end of the agreement." She said and then gestured over to the far wall. There was a light surge of force and a short panel opened, revealing that the wall was honeycombed with a mural draw over the concealing flaps. Out from this opening floated a wrapped parchment, sealed into a scroll. It flew at Kain and the Vampire caught it out of the air in one hand.

"Here, take this scroll. It will give you the necessary settings for the time period you require." She assured him. Kain broke the seal with a talon and unrolled it. There were rune like marks for writing but Kain recognised these symbols enough from the various dials and devices in the Chronoplast chamber.

This could very well be what he needed.

"And Kain…" The seer began and he looked over. "Good luck to you Scion of Balance. Such praise might seem strange to you from a Hylden but I have hopes you might be such as much a boon to my people as to your own."

Kain smiled whimsically and clutched the scroll.

**"**Perhaps Seer… Perhaps."


	13. Chronoplast

Standing atop the cliff, towering above the Forgotten Keep which the gathering light of the moon was hiding once more; Vorador stood to erect attention. His arm outstretched and perched upon it was a Raven, one of his many trained birds. Its sinister dark head was level with his ear and to him it whispered its report of distant goings on.

When finished, Vorador nodded once and held his arm higher. The bird let out its call out before taking to the air. When it was a short distance away it disappeared, fading away into a green haze.

Vorador stared after it for a short while before he turned and then looked back to face crack rocks behind him

"Ah there you are." He began. Out of the shadows, Kain emerged looking grimly thoughtful but not disappointed. "I could not contact you before."

"I was being entertained." Kain mused, his eyes still distant as he approached.

The ancient vampire raised an eyebrow.

"Then you met the Seer?" He asked. Kain nodded.

"She gave me a starting point."

Vorador sighed and shook his head, folding his arms.

"I still believe your chasing ghosts." He declared in an unimpressed voice. Kain looked down once at the scroll he had tightly grasped in one hand.

"Ghosts sometimes have interesting things to say." He opined. Vorador looked down at it contemplatively but then made a disgusted noise and turned away to look off towards the horizon.

"Then I wish you more luck than came to this Raziel of yours."

There was a moment of silence.

"And you Vorador? Where will you go now?" Kain asked in a low tone. Vorador did not answer immediately but his eyes narrowed a bit and he set his jaw.

He drew in several breaths before his ears dropped a little.

"Twenty years ago Moebius' crusade began to target vampire worshipers as well as our kind." He began, launching into what seemed like an unrelated anecdote. "There was a family who was the most loyal supporting bloodline who revered me. They remained mine through the bloody era of the Sarafan and the Hunters both."

Kain watched his face and was able to catch the momentary haunted look that crossed his face.

"Moebius came for them personally and then used them as examples of traitors. They were all burned alive save for one infant girl…. The only one of their bloodline I was in time to rescue."

Then Kain understood.

"Umah?" He asked. Vorador tilted his head down, resting his chin on his breast and frowned.

"Perhaps you find it surprising that I put myself out over mere humans?" He asked. "I confess it was a moment of weakness."

Kain was slightly taken aback by this display of openness.

"The Sarafan had murdered my sire and now Moebius' cutthroats had taken every other vampires I called close kin. I could not bare the thought of having more of my own die, even if they were human. In that infant I saw personified the faces of all those I had lost."

Kain had known Vorador had at once time being a sentimentalist, who attached great worth onto his close kin especially his Sire Janos Audron but he had never shown this side of him outside that closed in circle of confidants.

"Where do I go now you ask?" Vorador then asked abruptly, looking around at him. "I go east, to Willendorf and the city of the dying Lion. There I will recreate our people."

"And if my younger self recruits from them an army?" At this question Vorador actually smiled.

"What will be will be." He said in an actually resigned tone of voice. "He may be a rash, power drunk fledgling but seeing the being he will mature into gives me renewed faith in his ability."

Then he turned his back fully, facing the distant valleys of Eastern Nosgoth.

"Goodbye Kain. Rest assured I will be watching him for the tell tale sighs of evolution that will produce the being that saved my daughter."

There was a shimmer and the Ancient vampire changed, assuming the guise of the wolf. With swift bounds he vaulted forward, racing down into the canyons and taking the first steps on his own journey.

Kain watched him go, before with stern resolution turning himself to look towards the distant mountains of the north.

**_"As Vorador left I forced my mind blank, refusing to think any more than necessary. Vorador praised me now but before long he would be cursing me with every fibre of his being. Leaving him to his fate, I turned my attention to my own."_**

His own body shimmered and then broke apart, his very substance becoming a swarm of bats that each in turn flew into the air and soared high into the night.

Across the length of Nosgoth they soared flying far and fast, swift in the darkness. They soared over the dying forests leaving them behind. The great southern lake and the stronghold faded on the horizon. Over the burned out corpse of Avernus the bats flew, paying no heed to the demons still prowling its streets and who growled up futility that the swarm passing overhead.

The nestled village of Uschtenhim was barely noticed, hidden in a rocky valley before the mountains were flying below. Directly to the north were the ruins of Janos Audron's eyrie but from here the bats turned west, flying along the ridgeline of the mountains and then down before the mouth of a small and almost insignificant cave.

There the bats came together once more and Kain solidified, dropping down into the near knee high snow of the mountains.

Before him was the entrance to an elaborate labyrinth, a long and twisting network of caves.

This hidden grotto was the romanticized lair of the Oracle of Nosgoth, a place where those seeking to know the future would brace the traps and the dark to seek out the Soothsayer for advice.

This ideal however was little more than a cruel joke, perpetrated by Moebius the Time Streamer.

Even beyond his deception however, beyond the Oracle Caves' ultimate secret. Kain made his way into the darkness, knowing precisely where to go. The twisting length of these tunnels was no impediment to him.

The Oracle cave itself was little more than a round room carved in arcane murals, with a suspended pot hung in the directly in the centre.

Catching the pot with one hand, Kain pulled it sharply to one side.

There was a loud grating noise and slowly, the walls of the chamber peeled back, revealing what lay beyond, the extended and far more complex system of machines and clockwork that made the most powerful Time Streaming chamber in Nosgoth.

**_"The ancient Chronoplast chamber, the most powerful of the time streaming chambers. With this chamber in his possession Moebius had had the power to manipulate history to his own twisted designs."_**

Entering the main chamber, Kain observed its status. The ancient machine was of course still intact and operational. A pit with curving smooth stone walls, interlaid with brass clockwork and pale glowing violet crystal.

Brass holdings with simple golden lights illuminated the chamber at every one of its three levels.

Laid into the floor of the chamber was the curved figure eight of eternity that Moebius used as his emblem and indentifying icon.

Directly above was the armillary like construction that served a conduit for the Chloroplast's energies, directing it to the curved in porthole at the far end of the room. This sustained hole in space and time was like a blue vortex, emitting a low whining sound as if reality itself was protesting the rip. The roof of the chamber was a large crystalline dome through which the stars, representing the fates of all beings and the armillary constantly followed the stars to track them.

There were essentially three types of time streaming devices. The first were portable devices that could only deliver the user through time a limited amount of years and could only be used once, crumbling into dust upon the strain of use.

The second were larger machines Moebius had once had built into the Sarafan stronghold. These had far longer range in time than the portable devices but were limited to the space within their own chambers.

For the Chronoplast, there were no limits. If one knew how to use it properly and had the correct settings, it could deliver the user to any place and any time.

**_"Now this chamber served my far more noble purpose. Armed with the Seer's scroll, I proceeded to alter the ancient machines controls. I had spent centuries of trail and error studying this device and the era I seemed to be attuning it to be thousands of years in the past. I had no guarantee that the Seer's information was accurate or even that she was telling the truth but still this was my best chance to fulfil my destiny."_**

The Chronoplast's controls were clock work, the dials and levers moving the machine that was a welding of both science and sorcery. As each setting from the scroll was put in place, the machinery above responded in kind, turning around itself and gathering energy with an audible hum. The armillary churned above, parts of its structure hovering in orbit around the main whole. Bolts of energy began to travel along its length, zapping back and forth from the rim to the large circular centre which glowed increasingly brighter.

When Kain threw the last switch, inputting the last of the Seer's settings the machine reached its climax. The built up temporal energy shot forth from the armillary and connected with the porthole. The gateway in time absorbed the energy and its blue haze burst forth from itself, hovered in mid air and then turned bright white. The porthole reabsorbed the envy pulling it back in to re-devour it. As it swallowed the energy it carved in upon itself becoming a stable hole punched through time and space.

Ascending the stairs Kain paused to stare down the throat of time itself

**_"Not for the first time I stood on the Chronoplast's threshold and faced with the unknown I hesitated. This momentary lapse was soon corrected and I marched forward to meet my destiny."_**

One step, a met foot of distance, to cross thousands of years of time. The impact of such huge step was a powerful shockwave of a sensation that caused Kain to feel unbearably stretched. As if one foot was in the present and the other on the far side of history. Then he felt himself soaring, flying past countless people as they lived and died in the blink of an eye.

The light of the vortex was blinding but Kain could impressions, fleeting half images of events in history. He thought he perceived the crowning of King Ottmar and then his own birth. Ariel's murder at the hands of a possessed Mortanius.

Then he was almost convinced he saw Vorador stabbing the previous Balance Guardian before Ariel in the back and then turned his wrath on the others.

Janos Audron's death in Raziel's arms.

The rising Banners of the original Sarafan Order.

And then…

Kain gasped out load he emerged from the vortex. He stumbled to the ground that came up to meet him, feeling the lush green grass beneath him.

Slowly he straightened up and observed the leaden grey sky above that hid the sun. Thick droplets of rain pounded down on a damp ground.

**_"The air around me was purer, the ground under my feet alive with energy. There was no question that I was in the past, but was I in the era I sought? This remained unanswered."_**

Kain looked around, observing this new place. Thick trees of pine and other evergreens lined the side of steeps hills to the north and a river cascaded down a jagged cliff to move down through their valley, swollen with the rain.

To the west rose large mountain peeks that he only vaguely recognised as Nosgoth's curved western mountain range.

To the south was a far more welcome view, even through the haze of the rain.

**_"From this vantage point a welcome sight met me, one I would never tire of seeing. The Pillars of Nosgoth standing erect and pure, piercing the earth and the sky. The sight gave me strength but that was not all there was to see in this panorama."_**

Glancing past the pillars he saw to the west the Lake of Tears, the largest Lake in Nosgoth on the verge of an inland sea. There his eyes rested, staring at what lay there for him to behold.

**_"Beyond the pillars, to the west, stood the visible outline of the Citadel of Tears; the ancient citadel of my ancestors. Unblemished by time and standing whole."_**


	14. Seraphim

Kain would have gone into bat form immediately to head to the pillars and from there to the Citadel but he paused just long enough to hear the unmistakable sound of someone moving around nearby.

His body trembled slightly in response, informing him of its need to feed after so long a journey and the previous battle with the Homunculi.

Following the sound and the quickening scent of man and beast, Kain manoeuvred his way towards the stream always keeping a tree between himself and his quarry.

When he got close enough he perceived that it was only one man, with a hunting dog at his side.

The dog was an early breed, still partly wolf and had a thick leather collar.

The man wore bronze armour, underlain with animal furs. A crude bronze knife and sword was belted at his waist and his boots were made of badly stitched cow hide.

The helmet around his head however caused Kain to stare for a moment. If he did not know any better he could have sworn it to be a crude version of the later era Sarafan helmets.

With nothing to fear from so light an adversary, Kain stepped out from concealment and approached. He did not bother drawing the Reaver.

The dog barked and bared its teeth, ears flat against its head. The man looked up in alarm and when he saw Kain, staggered back.

"Nefastus!" He declared, reaching for his blade.

**_"This human spoke the ancient tongue. The word 'nefastus' meant unholy one. T'would seem my reputation exceeded beyond the boundaries of time itself. How pleasing."_**

The dog launched itself forward with bared fangs and claws. Kain sent it flying with a single bolt of compressed force to the head, the dog whelped as it flew accompanied with the audible sound of cracking bones. It landed with a splash in the river and was quickly washed away, the water churning red.

The early age man watched it float away with a look of anguish on his face before with a yell he ran at Kain, his sword raised high. His charge had no element of finesse or strategy in it. It was just blind, simple aggression.

Kain simply let him approach and causally knocked the weapon out of his hand. As the human was momentarily stunned, Kain lunged forward and stabbed his talons through the mans breastplate and directly into his chest.

The human cried out, collapsing forward and Kain took him in both arms and sank his fangs directly into his neck.

**_"As this early warrior died, I drained him of his blood to restore my strength. But I required more than just sustenance. As his life left him, I probed his archaic mind for information on the status quo of the ancient world. What I found there in his recent thoughts was more than a little vexing."_**

He slid into the dying human's mind, overlapping the fading consciousness with his own. His thoughts were so simple and debased that peering through was child's play.

Kain found himself frowning when the human revealed to him an unwelcome scene.

There was a large ground, gathered at the bottom of a small hill. Nearby where snarling animals, wolves…no… they were too deformed and monstrous to be just wolves. They were all collared, the chain leashed held by more men in armour, similar to this dying man only far more polished and a lack of animal fur.

The beasts snapped and strained against their restrains, probably galled into a frenzy by the smell of so much fresh meat.

On top of the hill were two figures that at first glance were strangers but as Kain observed the man's memories that nice illusion was shattered.

The one on the left was about perhaps twenty with oily black hair tied back behind his head. He wore a red toga robe with golden armour around his mid section.

The one on the left was perhaps slightly older, with a head shaved bald and a face lined by darkened eye sockets. He wore a far shorter violet robe and in one hand he carried a staff affixed with a glowing orb atop, carved to look like a snake was devouring it. The freshly scared icon of the symbol for eternity on his forehead easily indentified him.

These two boys were the young incarnations of both Moebius the Time Streamer and Mortanious the Necromancer.

Behind them, chained to stone stab was a blue skinned Ancient. His wings had been clipped and his body was covered in scratches and deep cuts. Burns were left all over his skin where water had been applied directly to his body.

"My brothers! Hear my words!" Meobius began; his voice a pale tenor of what it would become in time. The crowd did not quiet down and only stopped talking when the guards holding the leashes of the deformed beasts whipped them into a chorus of barking.

"For century upon century the Vampires have been our masters, content in their obese status and glutinous dominion they had treated us with contempt and derision." He carried on now that the crowd was paying attention.

**_"T'would seem Moebius had begun his practise of public narration at a young age."_**

"How many of you assembled here have ancestors who died, whipped to go into battle against the Unspoken for the amusement of the winged devils?" He asked, gesturing to members of the crowd in turn. The anger and resentment clear in their eyes.

"And how many of you have lost your beloved children, taken be to profaned in their corrupt citadel and turned into the blasphemous hybrids by the Audron?" Mortanious put in with a raised clenched fist, his head looking across the width of the crowd.

The faces of the angry crowd were spotted here and there with actual grieving men and women.

"The voice of god has spoken to us and he is with us in our cause for justice!" The young Moebius carried on. He raised his staff higher and the orb at its apex glowed brightly, the eyes of the snake carving almost seemed to glow with it.

The Ancient chained to the rock screeched in pain, eyes wide and back arched as the Spectre worked its dreadful magic on him.

"He bends his holy power to aid us in this noble goal."

The crowd bussed angrily with clear resentment at the tortured Vampire, many of them shouting insults and casting small stones at the winged being.

"Join arms brothers!" Mortanious said, encouraging them and gesturing with a spread of his arm to the warriors who still held the leashes of the deformed beasts. "Join the Seraphim Brotherhood and rid the world of the unholy black feathered scourge!"

He beckoned up to warrior's, who in response half dragged one of their feral creatures up the hill, snarling and growling the whole way.

When it reached the top and saw the winged Vampire spiralled out like a sacrifice, it roared and tried to charge but the warriors held it back.

"Become more than men! Become heroes!" Meobius intoned and with one final flare of the sceptre, the beast was released and it fell upon the screaming Vampire to the thunderous applause and encouraging screams of the crowd.

**_"I had seen enough and disgusted, I retracted my mind and let the human drop down into death. Seraphim…. Sarafan…the judgement of a coincidence that two groups so nearly identical could form unrelated to one another I could not credit."_**

As the human dropped down dead what was left of his blood soaked the ground and began to feed into the river.

Kain whipped his mouth with the back of one hand and grimly began to appraise the situation.

**_"The only logical conclusion was that these two Orders were in fact one and the same. I had come to witness the birth of the Sarafan, known in this day and age as the Seraphim."_**

The Seer had been truthful. Her settings for the Chronoplast had indeed delivered him to a time before the human uprising lead by Moebius and Mortanious, which he now knew to be the beginning of the Sarafan Order itself.

During this era the tablets on which was written his destiny might still exist. And now he understood why they would not be available in any future time.

Either the early Sarafan destroyed them… or he got to them first ensuring that they would not be around for him to discover centuries from now.

**_"I would have to hurry. I trusted Moebius not to hold of his eventual attack on the ancient Vampires. If I wanted to retrieve the Tablets of Dark Fable I would have to beat him to them."_**

Turning he looked out towards the horizon and the distant towering spectres of both the Pillars and the Citadel itself. The ancient's old capital and council place of the original Circle of Nine was the logical place to start looking.

**_"The notion of a race, while appealingly simple, was naively convenient for me and the hand of fate had never given me reason to trust it."_**

Commanded by his will, his body broke apart and once again he took to the air in bat flight.

Flying through the sky of the ancient world, Kain perceived the layout of the land. The southern shore of Nosgoth in this day and age extended further south than before, revealing that where in his time there was nothing but ocean, was fertile fields were food was growth by extensive farms and plantations.

Many of the ruins of the Ancients stood in tact and seemed well kept; although he spotted no other blue skinned ancient even when his flight took him near the Pillar's themselves.

Around the Pillars stood a ringed high wall with battlements but this defensive structure was completely abandoned, the doors left flung wide open for any undesirable to venture inside.

Then he was over the Lake of Tears and the Citadel itself, the capital of the Vampire nation, was towering up before him. His first impression from a distance was not magnified and now he beheld the fortress in its former glory. Unblemished by the years yet to come it stood defiant and proud, surrounded by a natural moat.

Not wanting to announce his presence to a city that in this era was surely occupied, Kain's bats found a secluded spot in a small high suspended plaza to come together and reform.

He had seen no one from the air but his acute hearing did detect the occasional sound of movement or distant conversation.

It would be unwise in the extreme simply to wander this place freely. In this era there was unlikely to be any vampire like himself and even in a city of his own kind, he would stick out. The best course of action therefore was to scout the Citadel and see what time had hidden from him in the future.

The Citadel was a masterpiece of construction, built to be easily accessible at most levels to those gifted with flight but near unassailable to any other.

Kain had no wings to carry him but the short range teleportation spell would overcome that difficulty.

Maundering around the outer exterior, Kain immediately perceived many buildings standing that in the future were all but gone. Clearly when Moebius' inevitable attack came he would raze those structures to the ground and the rest of the damage was due only to time itself.

One structure on the top level seemed quite impressive. It was obviously a temple of some kind as the wretched symbol for the Wheel of Fate was suspended above the door.

Kain decided to try exploring that structure first.

Translocating himself inside, he paused in the shadows to see if there was anyone around. To hic chagrin there was.

It was a human, but different from the one he had encountered out in the wild. She wore a feather dress down her back like a cloak, almost as if she were imitating the feathered wings of the Ancients.

She wore close fitting leather garments and sandals, despite the cold and was busying herself at the alter at the far end of the long hall interior of the temple. She was laying out candles upon the top in a strange circular pattern.

Kain was tempted for a moment to dart in and kill her before she could see him but suddenly a voice from beyond the alter spoke, again in the ancient tounge. Out from behind a red certain, a blue skinned face with golden eyes appeared and said something to her quite sternly.

The human nodded, quickly finished her work on the alter and then followed the Ancient who must have been either her owner or superior out of the room and behind the curtain.

Kain remained silent, listening to them go before he moved out of concealment.

The temple hall was long but unlike the Hylden temple back in the Forgotten Keep there were no places to sit. There was however a great deal more artwork on the walls.

As Kain admired them he began to wonder if his various inspections of murals, Human, Hylden and Vampire alike were beginning to turn him into an art critique.

Then he turned his head to look up at the large mural above the alter and his eyes widened. The shock was so powerful he actually took several steps back.

Displayed proudly in that image, made from pieces of thin glass attached to the wall, was the picture of a young blue skinned Vampire with wings spread. His hair was blue black and cut short into two bangs on either side of his head. He wore golden armour down the right arm and his chest was bare.

Upon his forehead was carved the same symbol for eternity which Moebius wore. But that was not the utterly surprising element which had so stunned Kain.

Below the figure was large plaque with carved letters which declared:

'RAZIEL-DIVUS'


	15. Birth of the Reaver

Kain stared at the mural, the eyes of the depicted ascended incarnation of Raziel staring right back at him. There could be no mistaking the image for anything but an image of Raziel. His face was almost identical, the only variation being the mark upon his brow.

And of course, his inscribed name below left no room for doubt.

**_"Divus…. The god like. This image left me confused beyond all measure as I realised that was no prophetic image of Raziel's coming but rather was a historical recording of a figure from history and mythology. What did this mean?"_**

This… Raziel-Divus was depicted standing on the edge of some cliff, hand outreached to huddled masses of other Ancients below, a ray of sunlight illuminating his head.

Kain gleamed from the image that Raziel was seen as some bringer of truth, an illuminator and deliverer of the people.

Frowning he glanced around the temple interior and saw that Raziel was not alone. Other images ran alongside his, each one depicting a different figure. Raziel was most prominent but the others were also apparently greatly honoured. There were four others, two ancients and two humans.

The human to Raziel's left was a woman. She wore a large broad hat and tight fitting leather overlaid with loose black silk. She was kneeling before a flowering bush, hands pressed together. Beneath her was the title: OTHIEL-DIVUS.

Further along on the same side was another human, a man this time. His hair was grey but his features were still young. He wore a white toga and a humble expression on his face. In both hands he held a simple shorts sword and was reverently offering it up towards a halo of light before him. The banner below him read URIEL-DIVUS

To the right of Raziel's picture was another winged Ancient and his role as a warrior was instantly clear. In his left hand he held the skull of a Hylden and in his right, a large barbed spear. His wings were spread wing behind him and his long black hair flowed unkempt in the wind. His title was METATRON-DIVUS.

AMBRIEL-DIVUS was the last one according to the title banner. A third winged Ancient whose winged were curved around his body, over a pair of arms that were crossed over his chest. His head was bowed down humbly and his eyes were closed.

Kain looked around the five figures here but lingered most on Raziel-Divus, the image that disturbed him the most.

**_"These figures before me I realised must be the Demi gods of Vampire mythology that Vorador had told me about. Ascended mortals given immortality and god like status in return for their services."_**

On a sudden whim he looked around at the other four images, paying close attention to the heads of each character. Sure enough like Raziel-Divus they were all marked with that same tell tale mark, the figure eight symbol of eternity. The aptly named 'Moebius Ring'.

The mark he had always associated with the Time Streamer was it seemed from these murals, not his own personal mark but rather a symbol given to those in servitude to the False God.

**_"Now I knew with certainty that Moebius' ambition had always been to attain this same reward and my heart hardened once more against his greedy and selfish soul. But now I wondered; what could Raziel's presence amongst these mythological titans imply?"_**

Kain was pondering this when honed instinct told him instantly that he was in danger. Then there was the sound, a churning moaning cry of mindless savagery. Kain spun around, the Reaver instantly in his grasp.

In the centre of the temple, particles of dust were coming together; churning in mid air and gathering into one solid form and Kain knew what was happening.

Homunculi, a lot more of them this time. Kain counted six regular centurions and three officer types, as he had come to call them in his own mind. They moved as wooden as ever, driven by remote direction.

**_"With the arrival of these creatures, hounding me across eons, their link to my enemy was confirmed beyond all doubt. If the puppeteer of these things wished to waste them fighting me then he was more than welcome to try."_**

"Mors Mort…" One of the officer types began but the words died away when Kain jammed a telekinetic bolt down its throat. The force shattered the head entirely like a dropped melon. The body slide down to crash to the floor and break open with its liquid insides spilling out of the gaping hole in the neck.

"I heard you the first time." Kain remarked dryly.

Another officer raised its hand and fired an orb of magical force directly at him. Kain swiftly dodged the blade, darting in quickly with the Reaver at the ready.

A centurion homunculus attempted to stab him from the left and he ducked under the swing, the Reaver single swipe severing the legs and sending it crashing to the floor.

A homunculus that attempted to attack him from the side he swung away from, darting into mist form twice before he darted in close and smashed a fist straight through the creature's chest and let its gelatinous insides spill out around his arm.

The two remaining offers fired several more magical blasts at him but these he met with telekinetic bolts of his own.

One interception was successful but the other failed, allowing the oncoming blast dangerously close.

Kain reacted instantly, his body fading into mist and allowing the magical projectile to pass straight through him.

Other lunges by the other surrounding homunculi failed as well, their swords unable to strike anything solid.

Coming out from their reach, Kain became whole again and with a telekinetically enhanced throw he tossed the Reaver straight through the air. The blade soared like an arrow and impaled the two officers, one after the other. The sword swept them off their feet, carrying the two homunculi with it until it slammed into the wall and pinned them there as they struggled weakly.

Kain reached out and took hold of the sword with his mind again, recalling it with his telekinesis so that it returned to his hand and the shattering bodies of the two officers collapsed to the ground.

The centurion homunculi surrounded him, forming a tight circle. Swords drawn and held at the same level, their movements synchronised completely with one another. The flawless control of so many had to be admired, no matter who controlled these soulless golems.

They all charged at one and to avoid them, Kain leapt up high into the air over their swinging blades. He came down sharply, stamping one into the ground with a sickening crack.

Two others came at him from either side, arching around to stab him. Fading into mist their swords punctured only thin air and he was able to back off too a far safer distance.

Now he used an old spell of his, a potent discharge of energy. A messy but potent magic. Launching it from his open palm he caught on of the homunculi in the chest, the following explosion smashing it apart into fragments that trailed the interior slime. The creature standing near was thrown through the air by the shockwave, cascading up wildly until it crashed into the mural of the demi god Metatron. The impact knocked a good deal of the stonework loose and the homunculus fell to the ground admit cascading brick dust and pieces of stone.

There were only three left now and Kain fell into them quickly, wanting to end this battle.

With a will he swung the Reaver, slicing the first in his path directly in half and the two sides slide to the floor writhing. The remaining two adopted a more defensive stance, holding their swords at the ready but taking a step back.

Kain wrenched one forward instead using his telekinesis. When it came within arms reach it slashed at him with the sword. Kain caught its wrist and casually snapped its hand off, the liquid inside pouring out through the hole.

A single blow to the head cracked it open and it dropped to the ground.

The last centurion homunculi, its controller apparently realising by now that any hope of this ambush succeeding had been lost, simply launched it at Kain in a futile attempt at a rush.

Kain simply ran it through when it came, kicked it off the Reaver hen the blade had done its word and then stamped on its head ending its struggling.

"Vae Victus." He said , whipping his heal on the floor to remove the stain. These attacks proved something else besides their link to his enemy. Either the enemy had some way of tracking his movements or they had prior knowledge of where he could be to arrange ambushes.

Something began to tug at his awareness; an acute feeling of his presence needed somewhere. He had felt this peculiar sensation before, when he had returned to the Citadel just prior to Raziel's sacrifice and his duel with the False Oracle God.

The feeling was quite strong and it was telling him to go to somewhere close, within the citadel once again.

Focusing his energies, he translocated himself away out of the temple and across the citadel itself to another secluded area close to where he felt he had to be. As he moved stealthy up through the various levels of the main fort, he saw the inhabitants of the city. Fledgling vampires and humans, living side by side, overseen by an increasingly short number of blue skinned Ancients. These strangely dressed humans could very well be the ancestors of the Feral Humans Kain had encountered before in this very citadel, left to fend for themselves when their masters departed.

Strangely, they did not seem afraid of the Vampires nor treated like slaves but were rather treated like lower class citizenry.

The strange pull led him within the main fort and through the corridors, occasionally using mist to avoid behind seen. Eventually he came into a large chamber, perhaps half way up the structure. He emerged onto a balcony where he could see the floor below.

**_"Before me stood seven figures, four of them Ancient vampires and the others mere fledglings. Approaching them was an eight figure, another fledgling who held before him an object wrapped in a silk shroud."_**

Kain blinked and remained in the shadows as he recognised one of the blue ancients standing there below. The years had lot yet lined his face or given him that grim serious expression but it was unmistakably the younger incarnation of Janos Audron.

The fledgling coming in through one of the doors looked familiar as well but Kain could not place his finger on exactly where he had seen him before. He had long black hair tied back into a ponytail behind his head and a neat trimmed beard. He wore a red toga and his nose was beaked.

He was definitely still a fledgling but hardly newly turned. Kain would guess his age at perhaps around two centuries.

He carried something just longer than a man's arm but it was concealed from view.

He came to the group and bowed low, kneeling down before them.

"You have done a great thing this day, my son." Janos said in benediction, pride clear in his voice.

"As you say, my sire." The fledgling said and Kain stared. That voice was unmistakable. This was Voradror! The centuries past this point would greatly alter his appearance but his voice had not changed at all.

"My Lord on High and esteemed members of the Circle of Nine…" He began, looking up at those gathered around him, with a short bow of the head to one of the winged ancients who wore an amulet around his neck marked with the symbol of the Pillar of Balance. "May I present to you my finest work; the sword over which I have laboured for many days and nights."

He reached up and began to pull the shroud aside.

"The best sword to emerge from the Serioli forges. I present the Reaver blade."

The Blood Reaver he offered up, holding the newly forged sword before the Circle of Nine with a humble modesty that he would loose in time.

**_"This revelation was startling. The fledgling Vorador, the crafter of the Reaver's physical shell? I knew Vorador to be a superb crafter of metallurgy but never would I have suspected him of being the Reaver's creator."_**

As Kain was absorbed this, Janos took the sword from his first born vampiric son and turned to his era's balance guardian.

"My lord on High, the weapon of prophecy as promised." He said. The Balance Guardian smiled and took the sword.

"You and your kin have done well, Audron." He declared, testing the sword and holding it up to the light to behold it more clearly. The other winged members of the circle however cast snide, disgusted looks at Audron and stood a good distance away from him. "Now we must prepare the sword for the coming of the Scion of Balance."

Suddenly Kain released who he was seeing. He had heard Vorador use the title 'Lord on High' before.

**_"As so at last I beheld the original Balance Guardian; Ba'al Zebur. According to both Vorador and the Seer it was he who crated the tale of the Scion of Balance and the tablets of Dark Fable upon which it was written."_**

Ba'al turned to the young Vorador.

"Now please, Vorador, leave us. This is something only for the eyes of the chosen few. I hope you understand."

Vorador nodded once with no hint at having taken insult.

"Of course. I was glad to be of service." He said and promptly left the room, going back the way he had come. Kain was faintly amused to see Vorador so docile and cooperative.

Once he was gone Baal took a hold of the Reaver's hilt in both hands and pointed the tip towards the ceiling.

"Let us fill the sword with our hunger." He said faintly.

**_"I watched in remote fascination as the Circle surrounded Ba'al, holding out their hands towards him as he lifted the Reaver aloft. Behind me, the Reaver I carried; the blades future self stirred uneasily. It was almost as if Raziel's spirit within the sword was aroused by the ceremony."_**

The Blood Reaver came into being, crying out with an animalistic scream of hunger. The circle, although incomplete by the absence of three members, directed their energies and the sense of the Dark Gift itself into the sword. It seemed to come alive with their hunger. The sword in Ba'al's hands almost leapt up into the air, feral and savage.

The inexperience fledgling members of the circle took a step backwards, apprehension clear on their faces.

With some difficulty, Ba'al brought it down to the ground again.

"By god's grace… such power…" Janos began in awed wonder.

"Power intended for only one soul and no other." The first Balance Guardian said, struggling to keep the trembling sword under control. "The Reaver is forged and empowered for the Messiah and him alone."

The Blood Reaver trembled, almost whining in hunger but in Ba'al's skilled hands its hungry cries died down and it began to calm itself.

"Soon, Audron it will be your duty to guard the sword until the chosen one comes to claim it."

Janos straightened and looked serious.

"I am prepared to bear the burden." He declared.

"I warn you. It will be a burden you will carry for some time." Ba'al said seriously. Janos smiled with an amused grin at that.

"What is time to me now?"

Ba'al smiled back.

"Very well. Prepare yourself, Janos Audron." He ordered with a sharp nod. "And return to me at nightfall for your final instruction. Janos bowed his head in acceptance.

"As you command."

**_"Ba'al left, taking the Reaver blade with him into a separate chamber. The door was locked and sealed by a barrier. I would have to discover some other way inside for I felt it was time for him of the first balance and the Scion of that same equalising force to meet."_**


	16. Forgotten Elements

With the main door to Ba'al's chamber locked and sealed, Kain was left with no other option except to explore for some alternative means of entry. If his memory of the general lay out of the Citadel was correct then this chamber would be buried in rubble in the future, along with any passages leading within.

Exploring the outside corridors left him frustrated as no doors lead inside. It would seem the only way in was that main door; or at least that was what he almost accepted until he past a decayed mural.

The image on the wall was that of Ba'al himself standing erect and proud before the eight other members of the Circle of Nine. What made Kain stop to examine it was not the imagery however, but rather the sensation of moving air coming from cracks between the stonework. There was an open space behind the façade of a solid barrier.

One kick sent the thin covering into pieces, cascading into small fragments that tumbled down the revealed tunnel. The passageway was not very large, covered in thick spider webs and pitch black a few feet within.

With no other option Kain advanced inside, brushing the faint white veils out of his face with one arm.

The tunnel twisted and turned but his sense of direction told him that he was going in the right direction. All he needed was to get close enough to knock a hole in slimmer wall.

Suddenly however the tunnel opened up and then dropped down into a large chamber of some kind, too large for Kain to see if the tunnel carried on out of it or if this was a mere dead end.

Holding up one hand he called forth the useful magic light, casting a purple haze of illumination over the walls.

He frowned as he beheld a large vaulted room with its roof lose in an overhead sea of cobwebs, the spinners retreating into their lairs to escape the light. The room was almost perfectly square, with high walls that reached up a good twenty feet. The general layout of this chamber however tinted at some religious purpose, with a far alter set into a corner.

**_"This place was clear intended for worship, but many year's worth of dust on the floor and walls told me that it had not been used for quite some time. The architecture and style was quite different from the outside more recent temple devoted to the False God and his lackeys."_**

Intrigued, Kain cast his gaze over the room noting ever detail. It was then he noticed as he moved forward, his feet brushed the dust on the floor out of the way. Underneath was a pattern of some kind, engraved into the floor itself. Holding up one hand, Kain sent a miniature wave of telekinetic force across the surface and the dust was brushed out of the way, moving aside like a tidal wave to reveal the coloured patterns below.

He knelt and studied them more closely, running a talon across them to read their lay in the overall design.

**_"These symbols were familiar to me. The ancient icons for fire, water, air and earth lay in a rectangle on the floor at the four corners of a square. These symbols represented the elemental side of Ancient vampire culture and their belief in the ultimate subordination of all physical things to these governing forces."_**

He glanced up at the state of this sealed room, frowning in perplexity and disapproval. If this elemental belief was part of his ancestor's culture then why had they shut this place away? Was the belief in these forces an older faith, before being forsaken for a relatively new newer religion inspired by the voice of the False God?

He stood up again and looked over the floor from a greater height and from there he noticed other symbols, smaller than those for the elements.

**_"Arranged between the elements were other symbols set in a prevalent sequence and these puzzled me for I recognised them from the base of the Pillar's themselves."_**

Around the larger image for Fire were the joined icons of Nature and Conflict. In orbit around Water were the inscribed symbols for States and Death. The image of Earth was joined by the smaller representations of Time and Energy. Air, as he had expected, was joined by the last two; Mind and Dimension.

They were also set in a square, although askew from the first.

**_"T'would seem even the aspects of the Pillars were bound to the Elements."_**

Having learnt all that he could from this place Kain looked up and saw that the tunnel did indeed carry on past this chamber. With a final glance around he left, pushing his way once again into a mere impenetrable forest of cobwebs. At one time, a spider the size of his head screeched angrily for being disturbed and almost launched itself at him. Kain merely squashed it with one foot and carried on.

The tunnel twisted sharply to the right, curving until finally it came to an abrupt stop. Ahead, the passageway had collapsed. Rubble blocked his way forward, but that did not matter now. In the side wall, was metal grill and Kain realised that he was in a corridor intended for the ventilation of the central chamber.

Through the gaps in the grate he could see the room beyond and hear someone talking, although the voice echoed too much for him to make out the words.

Kain paused in concentration and his body promptly broke apart into mist, dissolving into white haze that flowed forward and passed the insubstantial barrier.

Ba'al's private chamber was round with a low ceiling angled down towards the centre of the room. Doorways lead to other chambers where he undoubtedly slept and studied but in this central room were stone tables and chairs.

At the far end of the room, holding something to his breast was the First Balance Guardian himself.

Up close Ba'al was quite a tall vampire with tied back grey hair and short beard. Kain realized that with a great ideal of irony the fledgling Vorador he had just seen had been imitating Ba'al's appearance.

The first guardian of the Pillar of Balance was deep in meditation, the Blood Reaver laid across his lap. His hands were held out either side and from his lips came a myriad of strange words and incantations. The sword before him moaned and quietly shrieked in response.

Kain watched him for a moment before stepping from the shadows directly.

"Ba'al Zebur!" He declared. The winged Ancient started in alarm, his wings spreading instinctively and his eyes snapped open.

His face was deeply lined with the signs of age and as he swung about Kain could see that a good number of his feathers were grey instead of black. His whole demeanour that that of a man under the weight of a world of stress. Quickly he stood up and placed the Blood Reaver on top of a stone table in front of him.

"Who's there?!" He demanded angrily turning around. "Who violates my own sanctuary?" Even as he finished speaking his eyes fell on Kain. The transformation of his face from furious resentment to stunned awe took place in a fraction of a moment and he stumbled back too stunned to remember even his own centre of balance.

For a long time he simply stared at Kain, his golden eyes wide with shock and his hands trembling beside him.

Kain imaged he looked somewhat strange to an Ancient of this time. He had the talons on hands and feet just like him but he had no wings and the evolution of the Dark Gift in him had left him with a far superior body with tinted skin and a ridge of horns upon his brow.

Slowly the First Balance Guardian remembered himself and managed to calm himself.

"Then… it is time…" He said almost to himself.

"You know me then?" Kain asked, approaching. Ba'al looked past him to the Reaver blade on his back and then turned to look in confusion at the sword he had lying on the stone table behind him. He glanced back and forth a few times before he swallowed hard.

"How could I NOT know you?" He asked, trying to steady himself. "I have seen your face with my waking eyes every night and yearning for your arrival with every fibre of my being." He stood erect, drawing in his breath before bowing low in a gesture of deep respect.

"The Scion of Balance; hope of our race."

Kain nodded briefly in acknowledgement of the gesture.

"And you do not seem overly surprised to see me." He asked with a raised eyebrow. "I take then that you have had prior knowledge of my arrival here?"

"I had hoped you were coming." Ba'al replied, letting his shoulders slump. "When she told me that you would, I did not know whether or not I could believe her."

Kain narrowed his eyes sharply in a frown.

"Her?" He repeated. "Of whom do you speak?"

The First Balance Guardian looked up at him, genuinely surprised.

"Then have you not yet realized?" He asked. When Kain did not speak he carried on. "It could only be she who sent you here, although I do not know how she compelled it, damned to imprisonment in the Eternal Prison by Janos Audron." His expression then turned sad. "I tried to persuade him not to do that… but he and the others would not heed me. They could not tolerate her and so they locked her in that place with the enemy's most notorious weapons Builder."

Several tings clicked together in Kain's mind as he groped towards an idea.

"But there can be no question of who directed you here." Ba'al concluded and Kain's frown deepened in his realization.

"The Seer…" He said slowly.

Ba'al nodded with a sly smile.

"The Hylden woman is indeed the wiliest person I have ever had the fortune to know." He said and Kain looked sharply at him, for breaking his own edict that the Hylden were forever to be referred to as the 'Unspoken'. "Her cunning and shrewd machinations are a match perhaps even for Moebius himself."

"Enough of this." Kain decided out load. "I am here for a purpose.

"Why else would you be here?" The Guardian asked. "I am to hazard a speculation then have come to know the truth, of your ultimate destiny and the nature of the role of the Scion in it." He crossed his arms behind his back in a gesture that Vorador in his idolisation of Ba'al must have taken up. "Of the role of the Reaver blade and how and why it was intended for you."

Kain nodded.

"You guess well on many points." He said.

Ba'al looked at him sadly and then slowly shook his head, letting out a soft sigh of amused comprehension.

"And this I am afraid is where I must inform you have you have been the victim of the Seer's Machiavellian ploys."

The Scion of Balance stared at him.

"Explain!" He demanded. Ba'al's expression turned to one of remote pity.

"You come to me imagining that I am the writer of your tale, the one who set your destiny in stone." He asked. Kain took an angry step forward, finally pushed past his limits of cordiality.

"You wrote the Tablets of Dark Fable did you not?" He demanded.

"That I did." Ba'al confessed. "I was indeed the scribe… but I am not the author." When Kain's expression did not alter he carried on. "You see Scion; I was merely the instrument of destiny much like yourself. I simply do as instructed." He rolled his eyes and smiled. "The Seer was given instructions as well and I helped her focus those instructions into linear thought." He fixed Kain with a look. "It was the Seer herself who foresaw your coming."

**"So, not for the first time, I had been manipulated. Vorador's ignorance on this matter I could forgive but the Seer had deliberately directed me here when the knowledge I needed had incipiently lain with her."**

Kain scowled. He should have known… should have expected such treachery. But in his haste, a mistake he had long thought himself above making, he had not considered the true motives for those who had aided him along the way.

**_"She had sent me here to this distant time for some purpose of her own. When I found her again, as I knew eventually I would, she would explain her actions intimately… to the Reaver, if necessary."_**

He snarled and pushed the consideration out of his mind.

**_"However, what was done was done. I had no recourse now but to seek my destiny as she had laid out for me."_**


	17. Words of Ba'al

Ba'al chuckled as if amused by the expression of annoyance on Kain's face.

"Quite the woman is she not?" He asked, his lips twitching as if he wanted to laugh.

"Indeed." Kain replied sullenly.

Ba'al took a moment to regain himself and then his expression turned quite serious.

"I suppose you find it strange that I hold one of her race in such high regard?" He asked rhetorically.

Kain glanced sidelong at him.

"It does seem slightly aberrant." He said half musing. "Especially considering the fact that you were the one who created the very Pillar's that bind her race to that… other place."

Ba'al blinked and tilted his head back.

"Do you believe that is all that the Pillar's do?" He asked actually sounding surprised. "Oh no the banishment of the Hylden Race was essential for many reasons but the divine purpose of the Pillars extends far beyond that." The Guardian uncrossed his arms and ran a hand over his face. "The Pillars pierce the earth and the sky, with no beginning or end. They hold two forces that govern this world in Balance."

He turned then and gestured to a side table, upon which left scrawled many parchments and documents. Drawn upon them were diagrams, sketches and drafts of nine straight columns with a base halfway down their length.

Could these be Ba'al's own preliminary designs for the Pillar's themselves? Their very blue prints? Kain moved over to examine them more closely.

"The Pillars pierce the earth and the sky, with no beginning or end. They hold two forces that govern this world in Balance." Ba'al carried on as Kain inspect each document. There were various notations made at the side of each diagram but written in a strange sort of language he was unfamiliar with. He had not seen these runes in ruins left by either the Vampires or the Hylden.

"This paradox of stone came to me through her, between us we focused the concept into concrete thought and design."

Kain snorted, still looking over the papers.

"And do you tell me now that it was the Seer who created the Pillars?" He asked. At this Ba'al rolled his eyes.

"Hardly." He said feigned an actual surprised look. "Why would she create that which binds her people to hell itself?" He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. "I made the Pillars, banished them and declared their memory erased and their name to be Unspoken."

Kain looked up from the documents frowning at the Guardian in profound disapproval of such ignorance.

"And doing so you lay the foundations for your own downfall." He said bleakly. "The Hylden will be forgotten as you wish, but they will not forget themselves." He laid the document he was holding back down on the table. "The people of Nosgoth, clad in their ignorance, will be defenseless against their eventual and inevitable return."

Ba'al did not seem as shocked at this intelligence as well he might.

"Of course they will. I never intended the Binding to be eternal." He said with an indifferent shrug. "In the relative short term they had to be banished, for both our sake and theirs."

Kain stared at him incredulously.

"For their sake?" He repeated. "Do you imagine that they would agree with you that your sentence of damnation was for their own good?"

"Do you think me simple? Of course not… but consider Scion, what would their fate be if they remained in Nosgoth?" The Guardian gestured around to the images on the walls that Kain had not taken much notice of, dulled as they were. Ba'al had not taken care of them but they still showed imagery of vampire warriors doing battle with grounded Hylden foot soldiers.

As with most other vampire murals, these images left out a great deal of the blood and violence at the Hylden murals included and lionized the winged race over their rivals.

"Our people would have eventually hunted them down and killed them all, down to their last juvenile." Ba'al turned away and Kain saw that he had purposely let the images fade as he had no desire to look at them. "To ensure the survival of their species, they had to be removed. But having bound their life forces to the demon dimension to give themselves immortality it was the only place I could send them."

Kain was unmoved.

"Within that realm they will go insane." He said bluntly.

"But they will live." Ba'al pointed out, un-looping one arm to raise a talon. "That is the best I can do for them." Kain looked from Ba'al to the documents laid out on the table with a curious expression folding his features into a squinting frown.

"You are perhaps the most asinine and counter productive humanitarian I have ever come across, Ba'al." He commented. "Do the others know how you regard the Hylden and their banishment?"

Ba'al frowned.

"No and I will keep it that way." The Guardian declared. "Too many of our people are infected by their own sense of superiority and could not accept the Hylden or what the were becoming." Again Kain looked confused at this. "They were challenging us for supremacy in more than one respect. Religious commandment was simply the excuse many needed to begin a war of extermination."

**_"And now I remembered the mural I had seen in the Forgotten Keep, of that Hylden atop a cliff as if ready to fly, with spread…."_**

"Wings…." The Scion of Balance began a disgusted tone, realizing now what Ba'al was driving at. "They were evolving wings!"

Those bony structures on the backs of every Hylden had had ever seen, including the Seer herself, had always puzzled him as to their function. Had they been the small beginnings of wings of their own all the time? If that was true then it added a new, foul tasting aspect to the ancient war that left Kain with a cold feeling in his stomach.

"Indeed they were." Ba'al confirmed grimly. "Can you understand what that meant? Up until the first Hylden were born with those stumpy beginnings of their own method of flight, our people were the only winged race to exist." His face took on a sorrowful expression. "In our minds that ability elevated us above all others."

Kain took a while longer to digest these disturbing facts before he looked up again.

"So far you have painted a damning picture of the Vampire race." He accused. "In fact you might be said to agree with Moebius and his knights."

Ba'al cleared his throat a tad uncomfortably.

"Moebius has the truth on his side, I am sad to say… but only a human version of it." He corrected but without much enthusiasm for his defensive stance. "From their perspective we are indeed vile, contemptible creatures that deserve to be killed as we tried to kill." The Guardian frowned in deep disapproval. "But his eyes are blinded by his own petty prejudices and ambitions."

Kain paused to wonder exactly how much time was left before Moebius eventually reduced this Citadel to a ruin and exterminated the winged Ancients.

"My only regret is that he talked Mortanious into following his lead." Ba'al mused on in bleak melancholy. Then he remembered himself and shook his head sharply. "But we have digressed long enough. You are here to learn of your destiny."

"From it seems the Tablets of Dark Fable." Kain remarked.

"From them and only them." The Guardian assured him. "Without the Seer I can not understand what I wrote upon them, nor connect with the Divine Force that told me how to raise the Pillars."

The Scion of Balance fixed his eyes on him.

"Divine Force…" He repeated flatly. "Your god? The same god that ordered you to destroy the Hylden?"

Ba'al actually snarled.

"…No, not Him!" He said savagely. "Never from Him!"

Slightly taken aback by this vehemence Kain regarded the Guardian in his anger maintaining as detached a look as best he good.

"Do I detect resentment in your voice?" He asked slowly.

"From too few of us, more to the pity. The majority of my people were so dependant on Him that separation was lethal to their minds." Ba'al replied. He paced around angrily for a moment, his expression revealing the look of pure hatred in his eyes that had caused the lines on his face.

"We did everything He commanded, we served Him faithfully for centuries and then when we needed Him the most He turned His back on us!" He paused, cleared his throat and turned apparently recovered. "But there are other forces besides and it is from them that the Pillars came to me, and from that same source the instructions that aided both myself and the Seer write those Tablets you desire so much."

Kain was no more inclined to trust these nameless, faceless forces than the False God itself but this was the only option open to him right now.

"Where are they?" He asked, finally deciding to cut the banter short.

"Not here." Ba'al replied, equally abrupt. "I could not ensure their safety in this place." That was certainly true enough and Kain was glad for it.

"I gave them to the Serioli, my trusted warriors and smiths. I ordered their grand mistress, Ajatar Cadere, to protect those Tablets with the lives of all her soldiers if necessary." A weak smile broke his lips revealing his fangs. "Now that you are here, I am glad that I can relieve her of that duty."

"Where will I find her?"

"To the west, in the land of our most devoted human servants." The Guardian gestured off in that general direction. "There the Serioli have build their own fortress against the rise of the eastern humans tribes."

Ba'al pointed to another image on the wall, this one kept in far better condition. It showed a map of Nosgoth, more complete than any other.

To the west, extending beyond the far shore of the Lake of Tears was a rocky and mountainous peninsula. A location in the tallest mountain was marked with the icon of a blacksmiths hammer.

"It is their most tenacious position in Nosgoth. Our Citadel here will fall long before their own, of that I am sure." Ba'al commented dryly, pointing it out.

Then he reached up and with a sharp tug he pulled off the amulet he wore around his neck, handing it without hesitation to Kain who accepted it wearily.

The amulet was mostly gold, inlaid with silver with a diamond directly in the centre. The symbol for the Pillar of Balance was carved directly into the stone itself.

"Show my personal seal to them and Ajatar will aid you in any way she can." The Guardian informed him with a confirming nod. "Go with speed Scion, the hopes of all three races rest with you… even if they do not yet realize it."

With that finally benediction he disappeared, fading away into the haze of a translocation spell.

That spell always did seem to be a favorite means of ending a conversation.

**_"Despite his absurd eccentricities, I felt a strange kinship to Ba'al that I would not admit aloud. He was one of the few beings I have ever met that genuinely had the greater good of Nosgoth in mind when playing this game. I could respect that in a person." _**

Kain looked over at the map again, studying it closely and hoping that it was as accurate as it appeared. He did not want to spend days searching the mountains for the Serioli stronghold.

**_"It was time for me to press on with my journey. The protectors of the Tablets, the original Serioli smiths and warriors, were due a house call. I hoped they would not mind my visitation too much."_**


	18. Feral People

Even while his body was separated, strewn across a distance in a swarm of bats, Kain was far from blind. His awareness was stretched thin and he could see the land below through the eyes of every single wing creature at his command. Long and hard he flew, wasting no time as he left the Citadel of Tears to flew west in uncharted country.

By the time he flew over the first mountainous reaches of the western peninsula he was in need of feeding to replace the energies he had spent.

**_"This rocky, near inhospitable region of Nosgoth I had largely ignored when I had risen to power. It had been devoid of any human habitations and far too remote to be of any strategic value. Turel's children wandered its shores after the decadence had corrupted my empire and had even seized the lighthouse on its south peek but for the most part it was a land scarcely noted."_**

With hardly any room to plant crops and the only source of timber being forests of pine that ran up the sides of steep hills and valleys, this land seemed to suffer from a distinct lack of resources. This seemed to contribute to the lack of technological progression of these isolated western tribes as opposed to the eastern dwelling humans and perhaps their eventual extinction.

**_"In this day and age however, it teemed with the many Cliffside towns and villages of Vampire worshipers, the ancient servants of my ancestors who in times to come would become Feral. Their society was primitive, relying on the bounty of the sea brought in by fisherman in rickety looking longboats."_**

These settlements were not very large but they were numerous, many smaller closely huddled buildings held up by thick pilings of wood and stone driven into the rock. Many of these communities were connected together by suspended rope bridges that swayed dangerously in the savage winds that tore down through the jagged valleys and canyons.

**_"I began to perceive why the Serioli would build their fortress here, amongst these humans instead of with their kin further east. In times to come, the Serioli would be known as the finest weapon forgers in Nosgoth. Those smiths must have inherited those skills from these originals and they had built their place of refuge here as an easy place to recruit and train new members, human and fledgling like."_**

The bats dived down together through one of these ravines, flying around a startled human on one of the bridges. Souring down, Kain past by stone blocks carved into the sides of the cliffs themselves, a succession of columns that rock up towards the peak of a large overhanging outcrop of rock. Circling the columns up, flying in arching circles until he came up over the edge of an abrupt precise and beyond was the undeniable evidence of Ancient Vampire construction, a massive archway of stone carved into the cliff side.

The bats flew around the monumental fortress, studying it from above before they came down directly before the bridge that crossed deep chasm to the front doorway. This fort was not as big as the Citadel of Tears but it rivalled the Hylden's Forgotten Fort in size and dwarfed the Sarafan Stronghold. There was no entrance on ground level but rather a small balcony suspended higher up stood out in front of an arched doorway.

There the bats reformed and coalesced together as Kain emerged, stretching his body to undo some of the knots out of his muscles.

When he was finished he turned to cast his sceptical glance up over the impressively large fortress. The doorway before him was made of stone and carved into it was the same symbol for Balance that resided on Ba'al's amulet and the Pillar itself.

**_"Before me, carved into the mountain was a massive façade of stone. No doubt this was the entrance to the Serioli Fortress Ba'al had directed me to."_**

As he reached for the door, a jolt of energy shot from the handle and caused him to recoil backwards a step. Taking a moment to recover, he examined the door from a distance. Then he picked up a small stone and threw it forward. The rock fizzled when it struck the door's surface, smoking before dropping down to the ground as char.

Kain watched it break apart into black dust grimly.

**_"T'would seem that the Serioli did not wish to be disturbed for the door was bared, sealed and protected by a shield of energy that I could not penetrate."_**

This seemed to be the only way inside. Kain had seen no other entrances from the air and he did not like the idea of trying to translocate his way inside. Such barriers could be enchanted to prevent such circumvention and he did not want to risk it.

Slowly he looked down, turning to gaze down away from the fortress and down into the ravines and gulley's surrounding it. From this high vantage point, he could make out the Cliffside swelling of the Feral Humans, impotent and petite in the comparing shadow of the Serioli's own home.

There were a few rocky trails leading down to the villages through thick clumps of patchy pine forest, barely trodden paths and over grown thickly with weeds.

**_"This let me, with no other apparent way inside, little option than to explore the valleys surrounding the mountain. I had seen a few sheltered human settlements that surely supplied the Fortress. Perhaps amongst their squalid homes I might find a way inside to speak with this 'Ajatar Cadere'."_**

His body shifted, morphing and growing slender as he assumed the strong and agile form of the wolf. Once the transformation was complete he leapt down from the precipice of the fortress and bounded to the hard rock below. Landing with acrobatic ease he lopped forward into the line of trees.

His form as a blur as he moved amongst them, swiftly racing through undergrowth alongside the near vertical drop to the churning waters at the bottom of the cliff. The commerce creams of the gulls above were broken only by the crash and boom of the surf far below.

Kain lopped on out of the tree line, running right alongside the edge of the cliff towards a wooden house that was supported only the wooden pilings that also held up the large rope bridge that stretched across to the far side.

Not slowing down, Kain charged directly at the house and burst in through the small window and tackled the human inside to the ground.

His claws sank directly into his prey's soft flesh, tearing and shredding even before they had struck the floor.

He didn't bother changing back to his normal form as he fed; mouth wide open and the blood wrenched up of the dying body to restore his strength.

He left the body of the fur and leather clad human on the ground and left the rustic shack the way he can come, climbing back out through the shattered wall and turning to face the rope bridge.

Despite being such a primitive construction it looked quite substantial and he made his way across it, tentatively at first but then when it did not collapse underneath him, with more confidence.

When he was half way across he burst into a gallop, moving swiftly and then erupted into the settlement on the far side so fast that the humans did not have time to react to his presence. Some of them reached for their knives and spears, aware that something was coming at them. But by the time they had staggered to their feet, Kain had already rushed past.

The settlement were a collection of buildings built one atop the other, with walkways and rope ladders leading all the way down to the water where boats small and large bobbed around dangerously amongst the rocks.

Banners, each one showering various symbols that Kain surmised might belong to various ancient factions or houses of the Ancients they might serve.

Not all of the houses were made of wood. Quite a few of them were framed by wooden walls but their main structures were built into the rock itself, making the settlement a lot larger than it appeared from the outside.

Bounding up into one of these stone houses, Kain climbed in through a window and once inside his body shifted back into its regular form.

It was still quite early morning so in the room he had just entered there were several humans asleep, lying in stone cots filled with straw.

Kain would had dispatched them at once, but at the last second he thought better of it. While he held humanity generally in contempt, there was no need to slaughter those who had not wronged them while they slept.

He paused them, remembering that such sentiment had not stopped from doing just that when he had been a fledgling. Maturity it seemed also mellowed ones own instincts for violence.

So instead he crept over towards the sleeping three, a man and two women and pushed out with his own mind into their own.

While they slept, their thoughts were unguarded and random and with only their remotely aware subconscious to deal with Kain pushed into their memories… seeking information that might lead him to an alternative means of entry into the Serioli fortress.

Fleeting images floated past him as he browsed; memories of winged ancients in the skies and of their interactions with the more local humans.

On the whole relations between the humans and the Vampires here were quite cordial as evidentially the original vampire Serioli had at their disposal some alternative means of feeding themselves, although Kain could divine what that was.

But in their more recent memories there was something more substantive and more informative overall.

**_"Curious. It would appear from the thoughts of this human that before the sun rose this morning, several of the winged Ancients from the fortress flew northward into the bordering mountain ranges that form the spine of Nosgoth. If this remote wandering group of Vampire's we're of the Serioli, perhaps they could tell me how to enter their fortress."_**

He saw it quite clearly, winged ancient's flying away directly over their village. One of them was obviously a vampire of some importance, if judging by their less than average armour across the shoulders and calves but whoever it was flying too high overheard in the vision to be made out clearly.

And even if they had been close Kain doubted he would recognise them.

Slowly, he withdrew his intrusion and left the humans slumbering as if he had never been there.

Exploring the mountains for lost vampires did not entirely appeal to him but it seemed to be the only way he could think of at short notice of ever gaining admittance into that fortress. It could very well be that the Tablets of Dark Fable lay within those walls, just beyond his grasp and that thought was infuriating.

Still there was no use brooding over what could not be changed. Setting his mind to the task he made to leave, heading out through the side door and down a long stone corridor.

As he did however, he stopped, feeling an odd sensation. It was like a faint tingling at the back of his head and it seemed to grow stronger as he carried on down the corridor.

At the far end he found a large room, its purpose strangely undecipherable. There were plenty of bundles packed for storage but also a stone alter with outlines of brass for religion practises. Banners hung from the walls making the chamber look more compact than it actual was.

It was the object lying on the alter however that drew Kain's attention.

**_"This strange artefact resonated somehow within the vaults of my own mind, as if calling to me."_**

Kain suspected it was of Serioli construction and clearly made to fit a Vampire, with three finger slots at the end. It was made of overlapping bronze metal and tight around the elbow with a short spike jutted out.

He picked it up, examining it and in his hands the tingling sensation in his mind amplified and he felt waves of telekinetic force flow away from him unbidden.

Decisively he slide his own right arm into the device and it locked satisfyingly around him, attaching perfectly to his own leather straps and fastening tight.

When it attached itself to him he felt those waves of force surge and then amply within his own mind and he understood.

Holding out the altered arm he let a small wave of telekinetic force come forth. The gauntlet amplified the effect, forming a visible barrier of twisting air before him. Anything in front of that barrier was sent flying into the far wall where it broke into shattered pieces.

Kain recalled the force and everything returned to normal, the dust settling.

With a satisfied smirk on his face he studied the gauntlet.

**_"The gauntlet I discovered was a channelling device, built to galvanise and direct telekinetic force into a protective surging aegis in front of its owner. This item had other uses as well I sensed and if used correctly it would serve me well." _**


	19. The Grandmaster of the Serioli

Travelling north, moving swiftly in the form of the wolf, Kain traced the lay of the land as it slowly curved north east along the mountain range. To the north he could faintly make out the long stretched of flood plains that extended beyond the mainland and all the way to the Polar ice.

The vista from the elevated height was incredible but Kain kept his attention on the ground around him, looking for signs on the ground of travellers. His senses enhanced by the form of the wolf, he sniffed constantly trying to pick up a scent.

It was high noon by now and his shadow shrank to a dark patch below him as he moved and the overhead light did strange things in the valleys and ravines of the mountains. The rocks formed deep patches of shadow where it was impossible to see what lay within.

When Kain cleared a patch of dead trees and moved into these ravines, the tingling and unpleasant sensation that he was being watched ran up and down his spine.

He bounded up to the top of a rocky outcrop and there he paused, sniffing the air.

Sure enough he could smell the odour of lurking observers, many and close… far closer than he was comfortable with.

Quickly he glanced around but could not see or sense anything. Whoever was watching him had stealth far above average and the ability to shield their presence from the minds of more perceptively sensitive beings.

Kain turned and burst into a run, galloping up a sharp incline towards a higher ridgeline. When he reached it, he stopped only to change back into his normal form. Standing again on two legs, he reached back and grasped the Reaver to bring it forth.

Awakening in his grip, Raziel muttered in a questioning anticipation of a possible meal. Kain held the sword ready, level with his head and waited… all senses tightly wound to detect even the slightest hint of movement or sound.

Even so it was only the fluke scrapping clatter of stones that alerted him to the way the attack would come.

Some creatre, wet and covered with fur leapt off the top of the rocks above and came hurtling down at him.

Kain reacted with lightning speed, swinging the Reaver up and running the creature through. Blood erupted from the gaping jaws at the impact and Raziel stirred savagely, screeching as it devoured a soul.

There was a roar, and another of these creatures launched itself up over the edge of ridge followed by another and another, all of them moving fast with large sweeping arms that ended in long black claws.

Kain about turned and gestured out at their oncoming rush with his right hand. The force push he focused through the gauntlet he wore sent them flying, tumbling up into the air like rag dolls before they crashed down on the rocks below.

**_"These beasts were the un-natural mammalian spawn Meobius' Seraphim employed as guard and hunting dogs. The lack of intelligence or rational thought was clear in their eyes as they stalked me and close up, I realised what these creatures were."_**

Two more scrambled up the path towards him, their mouths hung open to show their fang and sharp teeth. Their fur was black and their ears dog like on the top of their head. Their faces were a strange cross between a wolf and a human, with forward seeing blue eyes and wet noses.

Their arms were long in proportion to the rest of their bodies, giving them a longer reach to ensnare prey with their claws.

**_"Early werewolves, the first of a short lived species of mutants that I had once presumed came about as a result of the corruption of the Pillars centuries to come. Clearly I had been mistaken."_**

Kain slide through their attack with mist and solidified behind them, his sword sweeping around to slide them both. The first was cut directly in half above the waist while the other, hit at a sharply angle, had its head send flying.

The Vampire kicked the body down the slope in front of him, in time to fend off another attack from behind. These creatures were so skilled in stealthy hunting that even he had been unable to detect their presence until they had been ready to spring this ambush on him.

One werewolf he stabbed through the head with his talons before a focused force burst ruptured the skull causing it to break apart into bloodied fragments that flew off in all directions.

The Reaver screamed in delight as it swung back and forth, devouring the tortured souls of these warped creatures one after another. Blood, as red as any humans; scattered on the rocks and stones around as Kain smashed through them as they came at him.

Three of them attacked at once and he leapt out of the way, flipping over in the air and landing behind them. From his free hand he discharged a bolt of potent energy directly at the nearest one.

The effect was somewhat spectacular as the body fried to a crisp instantly, turning charred black and then ripping itself apart all within the space of a moment.

Undeterred by the death of their pack mate, the remaining two leapt at him with flecks of foam flying from their rapid mouths.

Kain ducked and rolled, avoiding the lunge and when he came back up he smashed another focused burst into the second's back. It was thrown forward to impact with a sickening crunch against the side of a wall and fell down to the ground unmoving.

The remaining werewolf and Kain circled each other, one with claws held out wide and the other with a sword dripping blood at chest height.

Then the creature lunged.

The Vampire sidestepped, grabbed the wolf as it shot past and using its own momentum impaled the creature directly onto the Reaver.

As the blade drank its soul the body stiffened in convulsing death before growing limp. Nodding once in satisfaction, Kain left it slide off the Reaver and collapse to the ground.

**_"With their deaths, these creatures heeded me no longer. Still, I lingered a moment more to examine their corpses."_**

First he made sure that these were indeed the last of the pack before he knelt down to turn the dead creature over, looking at its form more closely. He frowned at the sight of the large metal collar around it neck, sharply digging into its flesh. There were cuts and the marks of whips all over the body, hidden by the fur.

**_"The body was proportionally human and so I felt safe to assume that these creatures began life as men and then had been cruelly mutated to serve Moebius in his uprising. So the Time Streamer's perversions had been the origin of these unfortunate beings. Perhaps one of these creatures might have hated him more intensely than I."_**

With a snarl of disgust he turned away.

Changing back into his own wolf form, he bounced up the rocks until he was clear past the ravines and out across the wide expanse of an elevated plateau.

From here he could see what appears to be an ancient structure, some sort of cave entrance carved out of the rock. He recognised the style easily enough having seen it before back at the Forgotten Keep.

It was without a doubt construction left behind after the Hylden had been banished; only avoiding destruction by being in such a remote area.

Changing back to this normal form, he approached… fully aware now that he was not alone.

**_"Along this trail I saw signs of recent passage. I sensed that I was drawing closer to my quarry."_**

When he reached the cave entrance, as he had expected to find there were indeed figure standing there. Three of them, all winged Ancients. They appeared to be waiting for something, one of them occasionally glancing into the cave.

Their armour was bronze, lined with gold. Underneath this was a long sort of red toga tied off around the waist and wrists. One of them had a sword at his waist, another had an axe and the third a long spear.

Kain smiled to himself.

Instead of avoiding them as might be the wiser course of action, he approached them quite openly.

The first one to see him was the one who kept looking back into the cave, spotting Kain when he turned back again. He stumbled back off his seat in alarm, scrambling quickly to his feet and reaching for his blade at the same time.

The other two looked around and then they two stood up, reaching for their weapons.

No doubt they did not realize that approaching them was one of their own, as in this day and age a human born vampire were nowhere near matured enough to look as he did.

"By the elements what is this animal?" The Vampire with the spear asked with a horrified expression, holding his weapon pointed directly at Kain

**_"Standing ready to fight before me were three warriors of what could only be, judging by their grab, the Serioli. At last I had found the original Vampires of the ancient order of supreme weapon forgers."_**

Kain himself stopped a prudent distance from them, not stupid enough to walk directly up to them. He frowned at being called an 'animal' especially by one of his own kind.

"Stay your hands." He told them. "I did not journey here just to start a fight with you."

The three of them exchanged confused glances but then they stepped aside, allowing a fourth winged ancient to step out from within the cave.

This one was female, with armour similar to their own only with shorter pauldrons down her arms. She wore a short skirt across her waist with a golden buckle on the left side of her hip. Her hair was short and tied back into a petite ponytail behind her head. Across her forehead was a silver tiara with a gemstone directly in the centre.

Physically she was average in height and her body had a great deal of developed muscle. Strapped in scabbards on either side of his lustrous hips where a pair of short blades, with the handles turned up to easy access.

"Then state your business creature!" She said in a sharp tone of command.

Kain narrowed his eyes at the way the others made way for her.

"I come for the guidance and counsel of Ajatar Cadere, grandmaster of the Serioli." He said warily and was not entirely surprised when she replied;

"Then you find me indisposed to humour you." She stood there proudly. "I am she and I do not see why I should waste precious time in conversation with…" The female vampire paused to look him over disdainfully. "…with whatever you are."

Irritated by her manner, Kain held up before him Ba'al's amulet for them to see, its identifying icon clear.

"I come barring official status." He remarked as her eyes widened in genuine surprise.

"Where did you get that?" She demanded and her three vampires drew in around her protectively.

"I was given it by Ba'al. He directed me to you." He tossed the amulet up and then caught it again, putting it away. "Will you speak with me now or will you not?"

Ajatar frowned deeply at him, a frown caused more by irritation than actual distrust. Her eyes darted off to one side and she pursed her lips.

Then the female vampire shrugged.

"Follow me then and we may speak as I work." She said and gestured to her warriors, who with a great deal of reluctance stood aside and allowed Kain to pass.

He followed the Grandmaster of the Serioli into the cave, seeing that only the entrance had been carved in the Hylden style. The rest of the cave appeared quite natural; accept for a few carved lumps of rock that might serve as a table or chair.

The air was stick with a strange odour that seemed to seep up from within the rocks themselves; natural gas Kain would hazard a guess.

He held a hand in front of his mouth. While he could handle many an environment it was not wise to breath deeply of impure air.

Kain glanced back to see the three warriors following them, even if at a polite distance.

"It took my scouts many years to find this place so I can not waste the time now that they have located it for me." Ajatar said as they rounded a corner together. It was then that the Vampire saw the murals, cave painting etched into the side of the rock face… Hylden artwork definitely but more primitive…done with the most simple of tools.

These images were far more abstract than any he had seen before but showed the two circle icons that Kain had seen before in the Forgotten Keep's temple. Only these had more detail, showing that the upper circle looked now distinctly like an Ouroboros … a snake biting its own tail.

"There is much I need to learn... to understand." She said softly, placing her hand on the symbol and tracing its outline with a talon.

"Just what is this cave?" Kain asked, keeping his eyes on the mural.

"The ancient hermitage, the site where the Unspoken Seer spent her time in communion with the God of their kind before she went to Ba'al to assist him in writing the Dark Prophecy."

Kain blinked at this intelligence and looked from Ajatar to the symbol of the self consuming snake and back again.

"The Hylden had a god?" He asked.

Now it was her turn to stare at him.

"You dare speak the name of the Unspoken?" She asked.

"Of course." He told her abruptly. "Only the simple would favour ignorance over knowledge."

"You speak recklessly." But she smiled when she said it. "It's quite refreshing."

"I'm glad you approve." Kain muttered.

Ajatar turned from him to regard the murals again, looking them over almost sadly.

"It was not always so…" She began, clearly changing the subject. "There was once a time when our kind lived side by side with the Hyl…" She stopped and then corrected herself. "… the Unspoken. "Not allies perhaps but cordial enough."

Her expression turned into a frown.

"Then Raziel came and everything changed."

Kain started in alarm.

"Raziel?!" He asked with wide eyes. "What does he have to do with anything of this?"

"Everything." She told him, his voice tinged with disgust. "When he came to our people the Old ways and the study of the Elements were cast down and the Wheel of Fate, his tyrannical faith, was imposed on us all."

She pointed to the lower circle in the mural.

"And then HIS wars began."


	20. Guardians of the past

**_"For a moment, just for a moment, I entertained the thought that it was merely a colossal coincidence. That these two apparently unrelated figures and persons had the same name only by sheer chance. And then I remembered I didn't believe in coincidence." _**

For one of the rare times in his life, Kain was at a loss for words. He stood there staring as the grandmaster of the Serioli order with a confused and stunned expression on his face. She looked back at him questioningly, unsure of what vexed him so.

**_"But this concept I could not readily absorb. How was it possible that Raziel had been a prophet for the False God, untold eons before even his human birth? True enough I had seen his visage in the Citadel, but it had left me no clues as to how this was even remotely feasible."_**

He shook his head, recalling himself to the present.

"So Raziel was the prophet of the Wheel?" He asked, putting the question out of his mind and into the open. Ajatar tilted her head with a snort.

"Essentially. He showed them how to speak with this god… the 'Oracle' as it called itself." She looked down at the Hylden symbol for the wheel of fate on the cave painting. "Between the two of them, Raziel and this voice from the deep turned our people away from the old believes to the newer faith."

Her expression turned sour. "The zeal it inspired in even the humblest of soldiers is terrifying to behold."

Another vampire with Ba'al's point of view on the Wheel of Fate? Obviously it was no coincidence that she was his most trusted ally then.

"And the war?" Kain asked.

She hesitated then, brushing a few strands of her black hair out of her eyes.

"Fables and early documents say our world was fading, slowly dying at one time." She began eventually, after a long contemplation on where to begin. "The land produced fewer crops with each coming season and no reason could be found for the darkening. When Raziel arrived to preach the Wheel to the people, he claimed it was the doing of the Unspoken; that their opening of the fiery realm that sustained them was corrupting the land. For this he shall always be remembered as 'Raziel-Divus'."

Kain looked at her expression, recognising hopeless disgust.

"Do you believe him?" He asked slowly. Ajatar swung her arms wide in a shrug.

"It was centuries before I was born so how could I know for sure?" She asked. "The land recovered when the Pillars were raised and the Unspoken banished to be sure… but if you ask me what I suspect then I would say that he amended their reputation to be the scapegoats he needed."

**_"Such information left me more confused than enlightened and quite a bit disheartened. As I had suspected already there had been no one reason for the war with the Hylden. It was had been a complex issue, a mix of religious intolerance, xenophobia and misdirected fear. The parallels drawn to the later crusades of humanity against my kind were undeniable."_**

He was silent for quite some time as he pondered this, thinking the unpleasant thoughts over until he could logical sort out their implications. Slowly a picture of the reality of the ancient world was forming in his mind. He did not have all the pieces yet but the picture had a disturbing quality to it already nonetheless.

"These …old ways you speak of. Do explain." The vampire asked, breaking that silence. The woman brightened as this was clearly a subject close to her heart.

"The preservation of the old beliefs is a central part of the Seriloi Order, the study and mastery of the elements." Ajatar stated proudly,

Kain glanced back to the warriors who were pretended, poorly, that they were not eavesdropping just around the corner. Realised they were discovered, they retreated back a ways with a few guilty coughs.

"The elements are the source of all power, even the aspects and principles of the Pillars themselves."

He stepped back a pace, holding up both hands palm up. In one hand there was a flash and between her talons blazed a spark of magical flame illuminated the cave.

"Nature and Conflict - Fire."

In the other hand, the moisture in the air was drawn out and condensed into a floating orb of liquid.

"States and Death - Water."

She widened her palms and beside the spark of flames, the air itself swirled and became visible.

"Mind and Dimension - Air."

Beside the orb of water, fragments from the ground joined together into a gently twisting mass of dirt.

"Energy and Time - Earth."

Then she gently closed her hands, closing her talons around the powers she held. Fire and Air were fused together, becoming a bright orb of light in her left hand. In her right, Water and Earth merged and grew dim, flowing darkness in her grip.

"Together form Light and Darkness." She said.

Kain watched in fascination, as did the Serioli warriors from a short distance away. Slowly Ajatar raised her arms, the two opposite forces pulsing in her hands. Then she took both Light and Dark, and pressed them together into one.

The merging was something that resonated through Kain's very being as he stood this close.

"And when combined again, the paramount element... Balance, the Spirit."

The flash of pure spirit was very brief but it was enough to stir the Reaver into muttering in a half daze and left Kain a bit disoriented.

"The Purifying element and the principle of the great forge in the Citadel of Tears." Ajatar explained, letting her arms drop in exhausted relief as the combined force dissipated. Summoning purifying energy was no small feat and even she had only been able to do it for a very short period of time.

"I had hoped the prophecy would return our people to the Old ways… but I gleamed no such inviting prospects from the tablets."

Still dazed it took Kain a few seconds longer to process this than usual. He blinked and looked right at her.

"Then you have them? The tablets of Dark Fable, the prophecy written by Ba'al and the Seer?" He asked her eagerly, anticipation building.

She sighed then and rolled her eyes.

"For all the good it does me." The female vampire admitted. "I could not understand a word of their gibberish so I came here to try work out the Seer machinations, to find some clues to help me translate but so far to no avail."

She actually laughed.

"To think the fate of our race hinges on their lunacy." She said sadly in disgusted resignation. "But beggars can not be choosers when it comes to near extinct hope."

"Then at last we come to the reason I sought you out." Kain pressed. "I need to view the Tablets."

She looked at him almost pityingly in response.

"Ba'al told me the safety of those tablets was of paramount concern." Ajatar mused. "But since you carry his seal then I suppose it may be safe to allow you to view the tablet I have."

Kain's heart sank like a stone.

"Tablet?" He repeated the singular word. "As in only 'one' of them?"

She nodded, confirming his fears.

"I felt the best way to protect them was not to keep them all in one place." The reply almost made Kain holler in frustration. "I kept one and sent the others away."

**_"The end of my quest had been just within my grasp only to be snatched away once again. As infuriated at this slap in the face from fate as I was, I calmed myself with the knowledge that one tablet was better than none at all."_**

It was a start and certainly given a bit of time he would be able to discover the location of the other three.

"Very well then, strange one." Ajatar Cadere said suddenly in affirmation. She gestured over towards her warriors, who understood and came closer. They had sheathed their weapons but kept Kain at arms distance. "We shall permit you to see the Tablet if it is the desire of the Lord on High that you do." The grandmaster fixed him with a hard glare. "Do not betray his trust or ours."

The female vampire spread her arms outside and all five of them were surrounded by a faint, blue luminous nimbus and in a moment of insight and given his recent lecture on the natural of the elements Kain realized that translocations spells, being aligned with the Pillar of Dimension were governed by the Element of Air.

**_"The surrounding environment shifted and changed as collectively, we bypassed space and distance and translocated away. When the shifting ceased and reality solidified, I recognised the entrance to the Serioli stronghold as it loomed large above us." _**

It took Kain a short while to correct his sense of time and distance to account for the many miles they had crossed in a single instant. His own skill with teleportation's was quite limited but clearly his Ancestors had been a great deal more proficient with it.

The Serioli stronghold looked as impregnable as ever and the faint shimmer of the protective shield in front of the door remained.

"Apsu… if you please." Ajatar said, looking back to the warrior with the axe. Apsu was taller than the others and his hair was also a lot shorter. His face was marred by a long and thin scar that ran across his nose from right to left.

He nodded in response to his leader and approached the door. He disconnected something that looked like a broach from the front of his armour and then held it out towards the door.

The broach was above the size of a fist, carved out of silver and had fitted so well into the winged vampire's armour that Kain had mistaken it for being a part the overall design.

The shield before him contracted in response, sparking briefly before its haze vanished and faded away.

There was a brief pause and then the door itself swung outwards with the low grinding sound of stone on stone.

Beyond was the long hallway interior of the Fortress. The floor was made of rough grey stone and the walls were carved from single blocks of rock, polished to a shine. Ajatar walked in first, quickly followed by her warrior escort.

Kain watched them go before he too crossed the threshold. Once he had passed beyond that point however, the stone door slid shut behind him. He turned and frowned at the sight of the energy barrier re-ignite.

When he eventually wanted to leave this place, he would have to find another route.

Following Ajatar, Kain was led through the fortress and he saw first hand how the Serioli lived. Their life style was so different to the mainstream Ancients that he was half convinced he was seeing a different nation entirely.

The primary concern for the Serioli was how elemental forces were utilized in the forging of weapons. Kain saw this displayed in nearly ever room and small forge they past by.

Earth magic used to hold the metals together. Fire Magic forged the weapons themselves. Water condensed and solidified them and Air was used to hone their weapons edges to the blade of a razor.

Banners hung from the walls to show what discipline was taught where, each one holding one of the ancient symbols of the elements. Here, Vampire fledglings and Humans stood side by side being taught the ancient art of elementary forging.

Most satisfying to Kain was the fact that there was no sign of the Wheel of Fate's insignia anywhere amongst them.

Kain felt his spirits lifted by the sight of a bastion of sanity in a world gripped by dementia.

Ajatar then led him up out of the lower teaching levels of their fort towards chambers reversed to the Serioli masters.

Many of the chambers were empty and Kain had already noticed that the fledgling vampires and humans outnumbered any Winged Ancients by ten to one. In fact, Kain had counted less than about three hundred winged figures in a fortress that was large enough to hold two thousand.

But those thoughts were erased from his mind when Ajatar laid her hand against the centre of one door and it slid open on command.

The room beyond had many windows surveying the surrounding countryside from a high vantage point. Two channels carried water down both sides of the chamber into crates at the bottom, forming a ring of water around a stone platform in the centre.

In the centre of this platform was a raised pedestal and atop this pedestal was one of the artefacts of Kain's search.

It was about arms length, round and jet black, perhaps obsidian rock. Written vertically across its smooth surface was writing, strange runic script that Kain did not recognise at all. It was neither Ancient Vampire nor Hylden.

The way the grandmaster looked at it there could be no doubt.

This was the first of the Tablets of Dark Fable.


	21. First Tablet

Kain, to his own surprise, found that his hands were actual trembling as he approached the tablet. The anticipation would have had his heart working double time if he still had had it. As it was, his body simply settled for the other signs of intense anxiousness.

Was his destiny about to be revealed to him, after all this time? Had Raziel's sacrifice and final act of free will delivered him to where he needed to be?

There was only one way to find out.

Crossing the short moat to the stone platform, Kain approached the stone. Now that he was closer he could see the work that had gone into carving the delicate and thin writing on its marble smooth surface. If Ba'al had made this stone in the grip of some divine revelations then it must have taken him days. The Tablet lay on its pedestal, surrounded by a faint scarf of finest silk. The Serioli had treated it with the reverence it deserved.

-

**_"Once again I was compelled to reach forward, as if invited. I could not help myself and even if I had wanted to I could never have refused."_**

-

Even his own mind could not summon the thoughts necessary to stop himself. So instead, he watched as his arms reaches out to engulf the Tablet.

With both hands he grasped the Stone and then his mind, his thoughts, his very soul exploded.

He was only briefly aware of what was happening around him at that point. He could see Ajatar's startled face and between his talons he could see the tablet he held crumbling to dust. The dust hovered between his hands, before in some peculiar method was absorbed into his very being through the skin.

None of that mattered right now though.

**"Redeemer and Destroyer."** A titanic voice remarked, echoing through his being. That voice held with it the reinforcement of thousands upon thousands of years of life.

He saw the Citadel of the Ancient Vampires and watched as a young human boy was brought before Janos Audron, who stood watching the struggling human without a great deal of enthusiasm. Without knowing how he knew, Kain instantly perceived that this bald headed youth was in fact Moebius as an adolescent.

The young time streamer had a fresh cut on his forehead, a deliberately carved figure '8'sign that dripped blood down his face. His eyes were alight with fanatic zeal.

Janos laid a hand on the boys head and brushed away the blood with his thumb to look closely at the scar. Moebius said something, spitting in rage, but Kain could not perceive exactly what in his detached state.

Janos seemed to recoil slightly so whatever had been said had been sufficient to get his attention. He looked at the young boy pityingly then and gestured to the two other winged Ancients holding them. The two of them nodded once curtly and took Moebius away; the boy kicking and screaming.

Janos stayed behind, before turning to look with anguish at another figure Kain had not noticed.

Ba'al, the first Balance Guardian, put a hand on the Audron's shoulder in consoling affection.

**_"Pawn and Messiah."_** That same huge voice echoed on.

-

**_"__I could not move images flooded my mind and I could feel the very soul within me churn and toss like a skiff in a gale. I found the experience to be quite… novel."_**

-

Kain felt himself being stretched by his hopping around, as if he were in some way physically a part of the ancient Chronoplast as it echoed across time.

There was then the sound of metal striking metal and Kain watched as he saw the fledgling Vorador once again; working tirelessly as he pulled on massive iron valves and pulleys of some vast machine. The chamber he was in showed the tell tale signs of still being in the Citadel.

Vorador worked alongside many of fledglings, all of them straining to operate the massive contraption. Jets of steam issued forth from pipes lining the top end of what seemed to be a boiler of some kind.

Down one side of the machine were cannels that led away from this boiler to a different section of the same device where Vorador by now was placing a mold directly in its centre, the depression a more than familiar serpentine twisting point.

Vorador gave some inaudible order and several other fledglings turns more valves in response. Pouring down out of the boiler came forth a thick, gelatinous red liquid that let forth thick clouds of white steam as it slid down the canal.

As it began to fill up the mold Kain could see that mixed in with this paste like red substance were fragments of white bone.

Grimly, Vorador shut off the flow from the boiler once the mold was full and then he took up from the work surface nearby a large hammer. This he held over the mold of the Reaver and then began to strike, each blow accompanied by an elemental incantation as he employed Serioli mastery in his forging.

The other fledgling around him paused in their own work to watch him hammer the sword into physical form.

As Vorador toiled in his creation of the sword, Kain could see that placed nearby in his force was another of the Tablets of Dark Fable.

**_ "__Time spanned soul."_** The voice continued and its booming presence erased this played out act and opened the way for the next and most spectacular scene yet.

Stars and suns flew past him as a journey of immeasurable distance was crossed in the blink of an eye. He saw Nosgoth as he had never seen her before, a blue orb floating in an inky blankness. Its landmasses only faint visible through obscuring cloud cover.

Kain felt that other awareness wash over his and he saw… something.

Some large titan flew past by him; surging down out of that black void towards the orb that was Nosgoth. This eldritch snake undulated from side to side as if swimming, its bulk too large to see its whole form. All Kain could see was the faint violet skin and fins that sprouted out at either side which were a luminous green.

The beast, if this thing was really live, was so large that in comparison he would have been little bigger than an insect.

Ponderously the serpent approached the blue orb and turned and Kain felt that presence centre entirely on him. Two pairs of eyes were looking directly at him from the fish like head that he could only barely perceive in its massiveness.

**"The two shall become one and the Scion of Balance is healed." **

Kain gasped and sat bolt upright, hyperventilating as he shuddered back from such immensity. He held a hand to his breast, feeling all the more disturbed by the lack of a heartbeat in his chest.

-

**_"I recovered myself, my thoughts and perceptions returning to the here and now. I swam to the surface out a sea of words and found waiting for me; chaos."_**

-

He could not explain the things that he had been shown by the Tablet. It had been like a dream but different at the same time, like memories inserted directly into his head of events in history.

Glancing around, he found himself in a separate chamber just off from the room he had collapsed in. The Reaver lay by his side at the end of stone cot bed lined with straw. No one, not even Ajatar, was to be seen either here or in the room beyond.

By the faded light he judged it to be later on the day, perhaps about early afternoon. The afternoon of which day he could be certain.

He could have been out for only a few hours or as long as several days, there was no day of knowing.

Strangely though he felt… different.

Slowly he picked himself up and laid both hands to the side of his head, trying to sort through his groggy and disjointed mind.

Glancing down at his body he saw that he did not look any different than usual. The difference seemed to be in his mind, as if he was looking at everything from a new perspective.

On the physical side, he felt renewed and refreshed as if he has feasted himself on a shower of blood.

But he cast aside these considerations for later contemplation.

If those visions had been intended for him, they had given him little concrete information to work with.

Had they been literal events or merely visual metaphors?

And that thing…that tremendous snake? He could not conceive on the sheer magnitude of that creature could be based in reality. Seeing that beast had shocked him just as much, if not more, than the horrifying sight of the False God.

But what it had shown him for certain was that in Vorador's forge, the birthplace of the Reaver, was the second tablet of Dark Fable.

Kain did not have time to ponder these things any further. There was a loud whistling noise, followed by a tremendous crash. The ground beneath his feet almost seemed to roll, bucking upwards with the impact.

There was the disjointed harmony of hundreds of voices roaring out in unison and Kain recognised that sound all too well.

Quickly he snatched the Reaver up and ran back out into the chamber. Through the grill like windows lining the outer chamber, Kain could see the reason why he had been left alone and unattended by even a guard.

Outside the Serioli stronghold, surrounding it completely was an army.

Heavy siege weapons were dotted here and there amongst what had to be a thousand men in the armour of the early Sarafan; the Seraphim.

Trebuchets were luring great slabs of rock at the stronghold and the surrounding Cliffside with devastating effect, the ground trembling with each impact. Behind the armour, the Cliffside dwellings of the feral humans were in flames; the rope brides and supports that held their community above the waves collapsing into the ravine.

From the battlements of the fortress, the winged vampires who were not devastated by sunlight's touch came out to throw spears and fire arrows down at the besiegers. A few of them were even hurling elemental spells into the army of humans.

It was not enough.

Kain saw grimly that against such a force, with only a small amount of defenders able to fight in broad day light, the fortress would not last.

-

**_"Was this the time for the Serioli to fall? For the original forgers to disappear and humans to take their place? Of that I could not be certain. What I did know however, that the second Tablet of Dark Fable laid waiting for me at Vorador's forge in the Citadel of Tears. If the humans were laying siege to this stronghold then the Citadel itself must surely be in jeopardy."_**

-

He glanced through the metal grill off towards the east. The curvature of the cliffs prevented him from seeing the low lands of the mainland. With no way to tell whether or not the Citadel was under siege as well, Kain was left with no other option but to return and ascertain the situation upon arrival.

That course of action did not appeal to him in the slightest.

But time was against him now. Moebius' army was moving than he had anticipated. He had to retrieve that second Tablet or risk it being lost forever.

There was another tremendous crash as catapults lobbed giant rocks against the fortress, systematically battering it down. They seemed less interested in capturing this fort than they were in reducing it to rubble.

Kain turned to run, but froze in annoyance to see that the doorway leading into this room had collapsed. The entire passageway was blocked off with fallen debris, leaving him trapped in this room.

Desperately he glanced around, looking for another way out.

The two waterfalls on either side of the room gave him his clue. The water had to drain out somewhere. It would be a risky route to travel with so much water but it could be done.

He walked over and kneeled down by the grate that drained the waterfalls away. He could pass through that as mist but the pipe within was not wide enough to travel down without being in direct contact with the water.

Unfortunate this was the only means out of this room.

Suddenly there was another tremendous crash as the siege engines outside hurled another tremendous stone against the side of the fortress. Already leaning as he was over the pipe Kain stumbled forward and to his horror, his hand past into the stream of water.

Even before he made contact he prepared himself for the pain.

But nothing happened.

Kain froze, staring at this spectacle in shock.

His hand was in direct contact with the water and it wasn't burning. He could feel the cold sensation of the liquid sliding over his skin and talons. It had been more lifetimes than imaginable since water had allowed him to touch it.

Such a thing was so unimaginable that he found himself simply staring at his hand with wide astonished eyes.

-

**_"This was a boon I could not ever have expected to befall me. The water paid me no heed, accepting me within its welcoming embrace. The tablet! There could be no other explanation for such a… miracle." _**

-

The tablet, he remembered now.

It had past somehow into his very being when it had crumbled into dust. The very idea seemed laughable but there could be nothing else. Carefully he began to push more and more of his arm into the water and still nothing.

The acidic burning touch his body had instinctively learned to accept from the presence of this liquid had been negated.


	22. Serioli Assault

The water cascaded down on his shoulders; matting his hair wet and making it cling to his back. Floating down through the narrow pipe Kain could feel the water, cold and pure, sliding over his skin without its burning touch. His eyes did not dissolve on contact, nor did the flesh burn off his bones.********

**_"Exhilarating! The last time water had touched me without burning my very flesh had been when I had been human… eons ago now. I had forgotten what the sensation had been like."_**

He must have dropped for quite some distance before the pipe opened up into another chamber, this one a good couple of hundred feet down from where he had started. There was no floor, only a tank of water.

There was a moment when he hung suspended in the air, before the water's surface was struck and he slipped into it without as much as a splash.

**_"To my great shame, over the centuries of separation from the water, I had forgotten how to swim. So for a very undignified moment I floundered like a new born dropped in the ocean. Instinct however saved me from disgrace and I found myself gliding forward._**

His hair floated out behind him as he sank down below the surface. Unable to suppress it, he panicked in the water… his subconscious screaming at him to get out of the burning liquid and it took his rational mind a moment to calm his body.

Had it been this for Raziel when he had first adapted to swim in the water?

Kain, still not half believing that this was really happening, paddled upon underwater for a short while to test himself. He had greater lung capacity than a human and thus could remain under for much longer without coming up for air.

**_"And now I finally understood the joy I had seen on Ruhab's face when he had evolved this gift, despite what I had done to Raziel for his apparent premature growth of wings. A weakness overcome."_**

Ruhab of course, infected with Nupraptor's corruption poison which Kain had passed onto him, devolved and became more fish than vampire. He had also traded one immunity for another and even though he was a clan leader, sunlight burned him like fire. Kain however was quite sure that had had gained the new ability without the loss of another.

The water carried on, being drained away by another pipe in the side of the wall. Kain kept on swimming, gradually picking up the trick to moving gracefully through the water. The pipe curved around several times and Kain swam on and on. He came up now and then in pockets of air to breath before carrying on.

Then the pipe ended and he could that he could surface into another room within the stronghold.

"We can't get to them without coming within range of those catapults." A voice was saying as Kain put his head above the water.

The chamber was square with the water running underneath the floor in a cross, covered only by a metal grate. Glancing up through the gaps Kain could see several figures standing above him.

One of them was Ajatar the grandmaster of the Serioli. Beside her were other warriors, two of them winged ancients and another one of the newer human bred stock.

"I want those siege engines destroyed!" Ajatar said angrily, her wings bristling behind her back. "They'll have us cracked open with those wrecked stones battering the walls."

"As soon as the sun goes down, I'll take the fledglings out to wreck havoc amongst them." The human born vampire said.

"We may not have until then!" Ajatar told him sharply, her tone frustrated and hopeless at the same time. "We might have to risk an attack ourselves."

"But there are so few of us left now!" One of the winged ancients protested, arms outstretched. Kain recognized him as having been with Ajatar at the Seer's cave, he was the one with the sword. From this angle it was hard to see him clearly.

"I would never give such an order without due course Apep, you know that." His grandmaster said ominously.

Kain had heard enough to grasp the situation. He slid back underneath the water, leaving them behind and following the current towards another pipe at the far end of the room.

The water for the citadel, presumably built to give the pre-curse vampires a fresh supply of drinking water, drained out into a nearby ravine. Kain had seen this pouring out down into the sea when he approached the stronghold the first time. The current was strong and drawing him on faster and faster.

Spreading his arms out side, Kain did not fight it and swam with the current, pushing on through the wide pipe on and on towards the light he saw at the far end of the tunnel. He needed more speed and so with all the swimming techniques his body was slowly remembering, he swam on faster and faster.

When the water finally met the fastened metal grate to the outside, Kain simply became as mist and burst out through it. Even in gaseous form his momentum carried on, flying out beyond the reach of the waterfall.

Becoming solid again in mid flight, Kain flew on and reached out wide with both arms until he connected with the cliff face on the other side of the ravine. His talons dug into the rock and he clung there, his arms straining to hold his weight. Below him was the plunge to the battering rocks and surf.

Grunting with the effort, the vampire began to climb, pulling himself up the rock, securing himself by sinking his talons into the stone.

It took him a good couple of minutes to reach the ledge and he hauled himself up onto it and struggled to his feet.

Turning, he looked back across the plateau on which the fortress was built. From here he could see the front of the Serioli fortifications and the extent of the damage done by the siege engines, which even now were hurling rock after rock at the walls. The human army had not yet begun a full assault. Instead they waited out of range of the walls, occasional archers firing shots at the battlements.

**_"The human armies position was thoroughly entrenched behind the range of their siege engines. The Serioli, cut off from any supplies, could not withstand a siege. Therefore their fate was left in my hands."_**

Kain then glanced off down the ravine towards the feral human settlement he had visited before. His first impression from the fortress had been correct. The entire settlement was gone now, fallen down into the bottom of the gap. The only remains were a few smoldering stumps of wood, lodged into the cliff.

The Sarafan's ancestors had murdered in cold blood some of their own kind, guilty of merely coexisting with vampires.

While not the most appealing cause to his sense of priority, given the situation, it would do for a motivation.

Translocating back across the ravine, he drew the Reaver in mid air and fell upon the Seraphim archers. The Reaver swung back and forth, sheering through armour flesh and bone and screaming as it devoured soul after soul. Caught off guard, these early humans backed off in alarm from such savage battle fury.

These men were not the hardened warriors the later Sarafan were. They were nothing more than thugs in armour, given some scapegoat to vent their anger against. They had never come up against a vampire such as he, tempered by centuries of combat.

He struck them down before they could move, limbs flying in all directions and blood coated the ground.

By the time any of them could put up a descent fight, Kain had already cut through a score of their numbers leaving shattered and sliced corpses in his wake.

"Vexare vampiri!!" Up ahead a soldier in armour was yelling, jabbing in Kain's direction with his sword.

The archers had fallen back and were taking up positions, drawing his bows back to fire directly at him.

Kain did not wait. He held up his right hand towards them and once focused burst of force through the Serioli gauntlet sent all of them flying into the air, tumbling back over the stunned warriors.

**"While the Serioli were not my enemies there was little to be gained by helping them either. Still however, some deep instinct within told me that I might require their aid to further my own ends later."**

The Reaver drank well that day and as Kain sliced through the warriors, one after another, he was certain that he could feel a faint sickly note emerge in the screams of Raziel's spirit. As if he was suffering the ill effects of over indulgence.

To spare him the soul devouring equivalent of an upset stomach, Kain swung the Reaver back and unleashed bolts of energy into his foes. The humans struck with these sizzling projects cooked inside the metal plating, screaming as smoke and worse poured out between the gaps in their armor.

"VAE VICTUS!" He declared to them all, knowing that these humans who spoke the old tongue would recognize what it meant.

They flinched back away from him and using that opening, Kain leapt up over their ranks and while in mid air unleashed yet another focus burst. This was not directly at the men below but instead at the trebuchet behind them.

Amplified by his gauntlet, the force cracked the siege engine under the tremendous pressure and the device warped hideously. Then the tension grew too great and it exploded; lethal seized shards of wood spraying out in all directions. Kain was saved from a fatal impaled by instinctively reverting to his mist form at the last second, the fragments flying through him harmlessly.

The humans below were not so fortunate, many of them died instantly by shards impeding themselves in vulnerable areas like the head and chest. Others were left screaming in agony on the ground, with the fragments lodged in their flesh in sensitive but not fatal places.

**_"With the siege engine destroyed, the Serioli stronghold would hold against any feeble against mere human flesh could throw at it."_**

There were a few catapults further away but these were shorter range, ballista style weapons and not very accurate. Clearly it had not yet occurred to the humans of this time to make fire ballista's, using burning pitch. Kain made his way to the edge of the battlefield to survey the carnage he had wrought.

**_"If this fortress survived then it would be their own efforts alone from this point forward. I could waste no more time here. Vorador's forge awaited."_**

"Warrior!" Kain could have gone there and then, but a voice distracted him. Glancing up, he saw that flying towards him was a winged figure.

When it drew near Kain recognized the slim, athletic form of Ajatar. She soared over him gracefully before spiraling down to land a few feet away, her black winged closing shut behind her even before she touched the ground.

"So I have graduated from 'monstrosity' then?" Kain asked whimsically, as she straightened back up with a half glance towards the battlefield where the stunned Serephim army was still trying to understand what had just hit them.

The winged ancient looked a bit flushed but brushed it off.

"My apologies for the incivility of my warriors." She said with a short incline of his head and Kain blinked, sensing the genuine sincerity in her voice. She was definitely humbled a great deal than the last time they spoke. "And my thanks for aiding us this day."

Kain nodded back.

"These humans needed to be taught to respect their betters." He said. In response she glanced once at the shattered trebuchet and the butchered humans around it apprehensively.

"Indeed." She said with some tact. "But this is only the beginning, I beg that you hurry, your sword is needed elsewhere."

Kain raised an eyebrow at her.

"I have just received word that the traitors to the Circle, Moebius and Mortanious, have amassed a fleet and even now their armada besieges the Citadel itself."

"When?" Kain asked, his blood suddenly running cold.

"Less than three hours ago." Ajatar told him, her own expression grave and serious. "The eastern human tribes have risen in force and there are not enough of the pure blooded vampires left to stop them."

Kain swore.

As he had half suspected, he was almost out of time. The ancient world was fading and the rise of men had begun.

"I will go to the Citadel." He said firmly, turning to look east across the horizon. He could only faintly make out the inland sea as a distant line of silver, erroneously called the 'lake' of tears.

"I shall accompany you." Ajatar declared, causing Kain to glare back at her. "Once my warriors have disposed of this rabble they will follow. We must go to the capitals defense." She then asserted, defiantly at the clear disapproval in Kain's eyes.

"You would only be a hindrance to me." He told the winged ancient flatly. The grandmasters nostrils flared indignantly.

"I do not require a guardian to watch over me in combat." She said with her wings bristling behind her.

Kain glanced around, seeing that by now the Serephim were beginning to collect themselves from their stunned confusion. It would not be long before they would renew their attack once again.

"Do what you will." He said and promptly his body dissipated, transforming in bats and flying up into the air in a swarm.

Ajatar stumbled back in alarm from the spectacle, watching after him with clear stunned confusion clear on her face. Then she too took flight, beating her wings sharply to give herself the thrust necessary to get off the ground.

Kain did not bother looking back. He could sense the winged ancient following the bats. He was faintly amused at the shock such a method of travel would give her, as shape shifting was a magical skill that would be developed by human born vampires in the centuries to come.

The bats flew on, beating their wings to near exhaustion to get back to the Citadel. When the Lake of Tears expanded on the panorama, Kain saw through the many eyes of his bats the full extent of the late hour.

**_"From the heavens, I watched dozens of human ships encircling the Citadel. The capital of the Ancient vampires was completely surrounded. Moebius had begun his first campaign of annihilation."_**


	23. Return to the Citadel

Fires raged all around the Citadel, blocks of stone tumbling down as their supports crumbled into ash. Scream and shrieks echoed through the hallways and corridors of this falling city. The attack had been relentless and ruthless, a constant barrage of fire into the defences of the Citadel to weaken the garrison. Then the humans unleashed their pets. Moebius' mutations, the werewolves, stormed the city walls and entered through any crack and crevice they would find.

Like maggots infesting an apple they wormed their way in and began to literally eat away from the inside.

**_"Feral as these beings were, they did their job well. Ravening through the city ahead of their masters they killed all in their path, rejoicing in a savage orgy of blood and chaos. They would soon discover that they had nothing on me."_**

Kain's bats came together in the air and reassuming his true form, Kain dropped down into the middle of the chaos. The Reaver was instantly in his grip even before his feet touched the ground.

Raziel's spirit screamed its song of hunger as the blade sank down into the body of one of the feral beasts, carving it down the middle from the shoulder to the crotch. Blood of the mutation spurted out all over the ground before it fell down in a crumbled heap.

The occupants of the Citadel had reached their final hour. The inevitable march of history would this night render this once splendid castle a ruin evermore.

There was a snarl from behind him and Kain whipped around to see a pair of werewolves perched atop a roof, claws drawn back and mouths agape, drooling hot saliva.

One of them leaped, his arms arching down to shred and tear.

Kain sliced up across the beast's path and the Reaver struck true, carving the creatures head and arms off in one swipe. The twitching pieces fell with a thump at the vampire's feet.

The other prowled the rooftop for a while, watching Kain and waiting for a good opportunity to attack.

When it finally did launch itself, it left itself open to an attack from the air. Ajatar came down on it from above, landing with the precision of a bird of prey. She slammed the creature into the ground with her bodyweight and then her two sword blades came down sharply impaling the monster's heart and lungs in one stab.

Kain did not wait for her to finish dispatching the creature. He busied himself in studying the layout of the Citadel. From the images the Tablet had shown him roughly where the forge was located but in these changing circumstances he could not be sure that it would remain unmolested for long.

"You are Vampire aren't you?" Ajatar suddenly asked, without even looking up from her kill. Kain did not immediately answer nor did he turn around, he simply set his features into a deep frown.

"I've never seen such a…. an advanced hybrid as you." She carried on, almost as if she were trying to find some other topic than the state of affairs in this chaos. "Did Janos sire you?"

Kain raised his hand to drape lightly over the left hand side of his chest, where before Janos Audron's heart… the heart of Darkness… had been without him ever suspecting. The stillness there still disturbed him.

"Indirectly." He admitted. There was a sudden far off howl and he swung the Reaver up to eye level with his muscles tensed. "Keep on your guard if you want to survive."

Bodies filled the streets, human and fledglings for the most part; all of them cut down by the vicious attacks of the wolves. Blood ran through the corridors to stream into the lake like waterfalls.

It would not be long before the seraphim launched their own invasion and once they did the Citadel was lost forever.

"Where are you going?" She asked him, but following close behind none the less.

"There is an item here I need to recover." He told her, even as flashes of memory from the Tablet told me that he was getting closer.

"But the city?!" Ajatar began, gesturing all around at the carnage. Kain was about to reply but suddenly a pack of werewolves came skittering around the corner, barking and yapping at them. The entire group galloped straight towards them.

Ajatar reacted first, both hands thrust up in front of each other. No weapons were needed for that great a range as she summoned for the Serioli discipline of air. The space around them contracted and then snapped out like a whip, the shockwave slamming into the charging wolves and knocking them down faltering their charge.

Kain acted swiftly, charging into their midst with the Reaver. The blade fed well once more, drinking their twisted souls down over and over.

Kain kicked a corpse aside before slamming his fist into the head of another, crushing its skull and letting the brain seep out between his talons.

When these creatures were all dead, he straightened and casually whipped the Reaver clean on the fur of the nearest body.

The Serioli were weakened due to the long decline of the Ancients and even now their prowess in battle was waning. Before long all the original vampires of their order would be gone, replaced by the fledglings that even then would fade or be forcibly removed in favour of humans.

This city was dying in one final turmoil of fire and its fall marked the end of the Ancient world.

"Any solider with even the most rudimentary understanding of the realities of battle would realise that this city is lost." He said.

Ajatar merely stood there, face contorted with the attempted rejection of that ominous truth. Ajatar was a good commander but her sentimentally clearly impaired her judgement. The Serioli would be of no benefit here. Their presence here in an already defeated garrison would do nothing beyond add to the casualty list.

"But there is still a chance to avert the extinction of our species but it lies not with confronting Moebius' dogs." He told her.

The grandmaster looked up at him in confusion.

"Vorador has a tablet of Dark Fable does he not?" He asked bluntly. Ajatar paled slightly then nodded limply.

"Yes…" She said. "I told him to conceal it from everyone."

"And he did… in his forge."

Her eyes widened.

"What? Here?!" She asked incredulously. "What he thinking of? The tablet… the prophecy! Moebius must not have it!" Her vehemence made Kain smile.

She could be useful to him if properly guided but the title of 'ally' had been reserved in his mind for Raziel alone.

The entrance to the 'under-city' as Ajatar referred to it, was located at the base of the higher citadel which housed the original vampire Circle of Nine and the established clergy of the Wheel of Fate.

The doors to this district had not held and the wolves had gotten inside. By the time Kain arrived there were no survivors and the stench of death was almost overpowering. Wolves of all shapes, sizes and colours came hurling at them out of every conceivable hiding place. Disturbed from feasting on the corpses of their victims, their feral minds goaded them into attacking.

Even focused bursts through the gauntlet were not enough to curb their enthusiastic sorties.

Finally they came to the closed and sealed heavy stone door which Kain knew had to be the way he was seeking, marked as it was by the ancient symbol for 'fire'. The smashed, broken and tipped over smith stalls around it immediately indentified it as a Serioli building.

Plastered on the nearby walls were crude images Kain recognised with a frown, the Wheel of Fate and the symbol of the False god. The imagery was crude and clearly drawn by those without much artistic flare, a graffiti intimidation of the occupants of the building who did not share in the beliefs of the mainstream culture.

Ajatar paid no need to them, her eyes forced rigidly away from the markings. Clearly she had seen it all before.

The door itself was scratched where the claws of the werewolves had been brought across in a futile attempt to slash their way inside.

Directly in the centre was the lock, a peculiar sort of mechanism with three holes vertically across the length of it.

He stared at it for a moment, before raising his right arm to look down at the gauntlet he still carried. Across the knuckles of this Serioli artefact were three spikes, perfectly sized and spaced to fit into those holes.

He raised his fist and slid them inside. Feeling a connection and hearing the satisfying click of a mechanism, Kain rotated his arm to the left and the latch of the stone door gave way.

There was a loud grinding noise and slowly the door slid apart.

_**"And so at last I came to the birthplace of the Reaver, Vorador's workshop and forge where he had unknowingly crafted the sword which now contained the soul of my first born son."**_

The forge was as much as he had seen in his vision, only now abandoned apparently in a hurry. Tables were tipped over and the great machine in the centre of the chamber quietly letting out jets of steam every couple of seconds.

Ajatar glanced up at the machine as she followed Kain inside, keeping up the rear in case anything else tried to follow.

"An elemental Forge." She explained. "Vorador was an adapt pupil in the disciplines of Fire. It gathered the energies of Nature and Conflict to assist him in his forging."

Kain waked up to the machine which stretched from the ceiling to the floor, with four different mould emplacements at regular intervals. Around the walls were wooden mannequins with various type of forged armour placed upon them.

With some amusement, Kain saw that one of those sets of armour was the Chaos Armour he had once used himself.

How many weapons and artefacts of Vorador's making had he unknowingly used throughout the centuries?

When he came around the far side, he found one of the stone moulds broken on the floor. He knelt to push a few pieces of it back into line.

The mould indentation was in the shape of a serpentine blade. That confirmed it. This was indeed the place where Vorador had crafted the sword. He however was long gone, probably fleeing before Moebius' army could unleash its wrath. There was much to be said for constructive cowardice.

But had he taken the Tablet with him? No… Kain knew Vorador well enough to know it had to still be here, hidden away in some cunning place.

He stood up and glanced around the chamber.

Connected to the massive boiler like forge by tilted troughs were large several silver vats, hung from the ceiling with nozzles on the underside that fed down into carts on rails. Ajatar was already over there, looking at him with a skeptical eye. From her expression Kain gathered that she did not know their purpose. Vorador more likely had been adding his own customised pieces to his equipment.

She reached out and turned the dial on the side of the nearest vat. Out the bottom, feeding into the cart bellow came a gelatinous red mixture Kain had seen Vorador using in his vision.

The smell of blood was so acute the aroma made him shiver.

Ajatar took a step back.

"Blood?" She asked.

No not just blood, Kain was quick to realise.

"And crushed bones." He said coming over to examine it more closely. "Teeth to be exact."

Ajatar paled unintentionally and glanced up with distaste towards the vats above her.

While she, with a mere few centuries of blood lust to contend with, was appalled; Kain was actually quite impressed with the ingenuity of such a mixture. He had known Vorador's ring had been made of a strange metal crafted from blood and teeth but had everything he made been forged from this substance?

Maybe even the Reaver itself? Out of curiosity he held the sword out in front of him, studying the metal its blade was made of.

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a rushing surge of noise. He swung about in time to see dust from the floors, from the walls and even from the forge itself sudden fling itself into the air.

The particles twisted and turned in a collection of small tornados, perhaps more than a dozen each one gathering the dust and coming together.

"What is this?!" Ajatar demanded, drawing her sword short blades in one fluid motion. Kain didn't answer, he watched as the substance of the dust became solid and the enemies arrive.

_**"T'would seem my enemy had once again caught up with me."**_

Homunculi… Kain counted about twenty three at first glance, five officer types and the rest centurions arms with blades and, more worryingly, longbows.

Their leader, an officer with more ornate armour than the rest of them raised its hand and wordless gestured towards the two vampires.

Responding again in silence, the soulless golems charged


	24. Second Tablet

Ajatar was faster, flying past Kain with her blades around her in a blur. She dove into the attacking homunculi with a will, spinning as she moved allowing her sword swords to slice down through their bodies like parchment. The liquid insides of the golems sprayed out like blood like the wounds he inflicted on them but they paid them no heed and kept up their assault.

An officer raised both hands, gathering to itself a focused burst of energy before directing it towards the grandmaster. Kain intercepted, the Reaver swinging wide with its own energies negated the burst with one slash.

Before any of them could launch another attack, Kain threw his right arm forward and showed them his own show of force. Amplified by the Serioli Gauntlet, his telekinetic blast knocked all the homunculi in his path down like trees before a fierce gale. They were sent tumbling before him, some of them crashing into the walls.

One of them tried to leap on Kain from behind, but he sensed its lunge and swung about quick enough to catch the homunculi in the air. Holding its head firmly in one hand, Kain proceeded to bludgeon any of the others who got near to him with its limp body. When he was finished with it, he tossed the body into three others charging at him.

He cried out, staggering forward, feeling blades bite into his body from behind. The homunculi relied on their sheer umbers for advantage, allowing them to get in closer to cut him with their blades.

Kain responded by lashing out with a leg, kicking the head off of one and then stabbing the Reaver through the chest of a second. Instinctively he dissipated into mist as more attacked from behind and he floated past his attackers until he was behind them instead. Before they could turn, the Reaver swung around and sliced them in half across the waist.

"Who commands these relics?!" Ajatar demanded, striking one across the mouth with her blade slicing off its jaw; its liquid insides pouring out from it face. "Homunculi haven't been used to fight battles in centuries!"

"You don't say?" Kain asked without pausing in his acrobatic dodging of blasts from the officers who, like cowards, stayed at the edge of combat directing energy strikes towards them.

"Not since the days of Raziel-Divus." Ajatar added, then cried out in pain as the blades of these cowardly dolls struck her from behind; leaving a gash down her left wing and hip. She sank forward almost onto her knees and the homunculi raised their swords to finish her in with one strike.

Kain reacted without thinking, gripping the Reaver like a javelin and throwing it straight at them. With a crunch it tore the creatures off their feet and impaled them up against the side of the wall.

The weapon returned to his hand with a simple telekinetic command, letting the shattered remains fall to the ground.

Ajatar stumbled back to her feet in time to defend herself from the onslaught of the officers then turning their attention on her, a cascade of energy blasted in her direction. With her wing inured she could not swiftly enough to escape being hit so instead stood her ground, literally meeting fire with fire.

Falling forth the element discipline of flames she countered, a torrent of flame striking the oncoming projectiles and the two forces cancelled each other out in mid air.

The Reaver's disappointed moans filled the air as it struck down soulless doll after soulless doll, denied a feeding by the cowardice of the enemy who preferred to engage through puppets.

Even with his strength and Ajatar's elemental skill, he was quick to realise that they were at a significant disadvantage. The attacks of the homunculi before had been little more than sorties, ambushes meant purely to test his strength.

His enemy was no longer playing around however and thus had unleashed a considerable force against them.

Facing them one at a time was getting him nowhere and running the risk of being overwhelmed, especially if he had to keep dodging those officers energy projectiles.

The only way he was going to win this fight was if he could take most if not all of them out in one go. Not an easy feat.

"Warrior!" Ajatar shouted and he came out of his thoughts to summersault up over the swipe of a homunculi, avoiding the attack. He came down right on top of he creature, slamming its head into the ground through his chest torso. As he swung around, he saw looming above them the pulsing hot frame of Vorador's boiler.

That was when he had an idea.

"Can you fly?" He asked, slicing his way through two of the creatures in his way. Ajatar flexed her wings, winced only slightly before parrying off another lunge by a homunculus.

"Just about." She replied.

"Then be ready to take flight." Kain shouted, leaping up to stamp on two more heads using them as stepping stones to latch onto a ladder on the side of the boiler. He slide the Reaver across his back and began to haul himself up towards the top of the ancient machine.

A few homunculi leapt after him, trying to pull him down. Kain kicked them off but a few started climbing the ladder underneath.

Reaching the top of the boiler, Kain hissed feeling the heat of the metal through his hands and feet. Apparently the bone and blood metal contents of this boiler could remain white hot without constant supervision; a testament to the Serioli techniques Vorador employed in this forge.

At the top were three valves with primitive looking pressure gauges beside them, only reading a small amount of pressure within the device.

Before him the homunculi were mostly gathered around the boiler, sensing him as the biggest threat while a few others were contending with the grandmaster, fighting in close quarters at the far end of the room.

She was watching him, her face half alight with alarm. She had worked out what he was going to do.

Quickly Kain grabbed the valves and began to tighten them all, ignoring the pain and the steam that rose from his hands at contact. The proper operators of this device must have worn gloves but he did not have the time.

The gauges began to rise, steadily as the pressure inside the boiler was increased. The heat from within grew stronger and more jets of steam shot forth from the machine, one emission hitting a homunculi in the face and melting its head clean off.

Kain drew the Reaver, watching the gauges as the pressure built up to unbearable levels, the entire machine shaking almost with anticipation. Then he leapt forward, spinning about in mid air and sliced the machine down the front with the blade.

-

**_"Opening up the boiler I unleashed the full torrent of white hot blood against my soulless enemies. Their terracotta skin faired no better against it than bare flesh would have and it was interesting to watch their pitiful attempts to escape."_**

-

In order to save himself, Kain had to enact the hastiest short range translocation he had ever done. The released pressures exploded outward, ripping the front of the machine to pieces. The resulting tidal wave of Vorador's unique alloy hung in the air for a moment before spilling down.

Ajatar let out a yelp before she took to the air, only just avoiding the tide as it surged down over the homunculi. A few tried to run but it pushed them down to the ground and swallowed them whole. All of them were absorbed by the mixture, reduced to mere stains on the floor within moments.

Kain had to hold a hand over his nose, almost overcome by the smell of concentrated blood as the substance covered the entire room. Ajatar hovered in mid air, beating her wings to stay aloft.

Eventually she came down onto of the vats in the corner of the room and looked over the side to where Kain was hanging on by one arm.

"Unconventional." She remarked after a moment of silence. Kain smiled at her choice of words, but then something caught his eye.

Glancing off, he saw something sticking out of the smouldering alloy on the ground. It was sticking half out of the red mulch. It was black and about arms length, round in shape with writing on one side.

It was the second Tablet of Dark Fable that he had been seeking.

Kain stared at it for a moment then he began to laugh.

-

**_"Of course! Where else could Vorador have assured the safety of the Tablet entrusted to his care with the upcoming attack by Moebius? He had thrown it into his own boiler where he no doubt assumed it would remain undiscovered by his enemies."_**

-

Irony being of course in that finding it, he had put the tablet beyond his reach somewhat. He was not foolish enough to try walking to it across the spilled hot metal and the object was far too heavy to levitate using telekinesis.

There was a spot near the door to the forge that was elevated and the metal had hot reached there. Kain tensed himself for leaping over to it, his heal touching the metal.

He took a reflective step forward. That was very hot!

Ajatar watched him from the other side, spotting the tablet.

"I didn't tell him to do that with it!" She sounded alarmed and shocked, dismayed by the steps one of her own had taken in carrying out her command to safeguard the Tablet. "What was Vorador thinking?!"

"Actually it was ingenious." Kain told her. "Possibly he had to leave his forge in a hurry and so to protect the tablet and Ba'al's work he dropped it into the place where he knew no one could get to."

He did not say however that Vorador most likely had no way or even intention of retrieving it.

Kain raised his right hand and looked at the gauntlet he wore. If the artefact amplified his telekinetic abilities, then he might be able to drag the tablet clear.

Reaching out, he concentrated hard, focusing his thoughts on manipulating physical objects rather than just the bursts of force he had been using so far. The gauntlet vibrated slightly around him in response and the Tablet twitched.

Then it slowly began to move through the liquid metal towards him, inch by inch dragging it in his direction.

When he was about halfway across however, something burst forth from underneath the metal and seized the tablet with half dissolving hands.

Kain grimaced at the sight of the homunculi, barely able to maintain its own form yet still trying to carry out the will of its puppeteer. Such interference was feeble and fleeting and Kain did the thing a favour by putting it out of its misery with a bolt of kinetic energy to the head.

As the body fell back into the liquid metal Kain wrenched the tablet all the way over until it lay at his feet, droplets of Vorador's alloy sliding off its surface. Despite the white hot temperatures it had endured the tablet had not suffered much damage.

The tablet was almost identical to the first he had seen, albeit with different markings across the surface.

Precisely what language had Ba'al been writing in when seized with the prophetic visions the Seer helped him unlock?

Looking at the tablet, Kain felt once again that strange feeling of detachment as his body moved on its own accord.

-

**_"The second tablet of Dark Fable lay before me. Destiny itself was bound in its rocky form. Reaching out I grasped it and did not let go." _**

-

The tablet in his grasp was like fire, hot and scolding but he held on nonetheless. He quivered, eyes wide as the tablet began to break apart in his grip and the onset of its assault on its mind began.


	25. The Death of Ba'al Zebur

**_"Even knowing what to expect was not enough to prepare me to the affect, my mind and soul laid bare and my awareness stretched across causality."_**

-

The tablet he had only just retrieved broke apart in his grip, dissolving into dust that past through into his very being absorbed like a sponge would absorb water. Its retrieval fuelled him in ways he could not immediately describe. Like before, the haze of reality seemed to float away like insubstantial mist and he saw past it to other… things.

**_"The pebble in the pond."_** That booming voice began to echo through his soul once more, that same voice that reminded him so much of the False God yet profoundly different.

Before him now there was a most confusing tight. He saw that looked like some ruins, crumbling castle walls and fortifications all of them baring the tattering symbol of the now long dead Razielim. Standing in a courtyard of stone there was a winged ancient, glad in extremely archaic looking golden armour across the arms. Kain perceived the ancient to be that other strange incarnation of Raziel whose mural he had seen before, Raziel-Divas.

Now the image was made flesh and stood there, wings spread out wide and talons. The resemblance to the whole Raziel who had served Kain for a millennium was so striking that it was almost like looking into a mirror that gave the handsome first born son he had been so fond of blue skin and golden eyes.

He stood facing an open gate, expression profoundly disapproving. Then turned, confronting an intruder upon the scene.

Leaping down from a rocky ledge was… another Raziel! This form was the one he was far more used to seeing now, the blue ruined wraith form that Kain honestly thought he had seen the last of.

The two Raziel's circled each other; each one speaking to the other yet Kain could not hear what either was saying.

Then the ancient version of Raziel raised a hand and threw a focused burst of energy at his counterpart. The wraith dodged and then leapt at his opponent, talons out spread.

As he lunged, the scene around them shifted and change and they faded with it.

**_"Armed for true endeavour." _**

Vorador appeared there, his mature form now fully realised. He sat down on a throne like seat made of stone in some dust and abandoned room. He had been sitting there for some time, as he himself was covered in dust, spiders webs clinging to his body and the insects running across his arms unhindered.

He just sat there unconcerned, his face sunk in what appeared to be permanent melancholy. Then he let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Kain watched as his skin began to harden like a chrysalis, becoming hard and touch.

His entire outer body became this shell as he retreated back inside himself, entering into a suspended animation that Kain and his own vampires has used. This was the state of change, a period were vampires entered into a dormant torpor to accelerate their evolution.

When the process was complete Vorador was encased, left to the mercy of the spiders and the mounting dust.

The whole scene was so pathetic Kain actual felt himself indulged in the fancy of pity.

**_"Time fades even legend."_**

The new act before him now was much more recent. The Citadel smouldered in the wake of its conquest and in the central chamber, Ba'al was on his knees; shackled and beaten. Before him stood the younger incarnation of the necromancer Mortainious, escorted on either side by un-dead beings he had conjured from his death magic. Little more than rotting zombie with flesh dropping off their yellow bones.

In his hands, Mortanious was holding the third tablet of Dark Fable, taken forcibly from Ba'al.

Kain felt his stomach sink at the sight. Ba'al must have lied to him. He had NOT sent all the tablets of Dark Fable to Ajatar and the Serioli for safe keeping. He had kept one with him. That foolish act had placed it in the hands of the uprising humans, where no doubt it would be destroyed.

Mortainious looked down at the tablet he held with wide eyes, fear and wonder both reflected in his expression as if what he held were the forbidden fruit tempting him to reach forth and take it.

A looming sense of presence interrupted Kain's thoughts and with that coming presence, everything else faded.

Something was behind him.

Slowly, he began to turn around but froze halfway; eyes wide at the sight of the face before him. Two pairs of narrowed eyes met his, with a large circular ond directly in the centre of that leathery face. Tusks of ivory, which in themselves had to be over a hundred feet long jutted out either side of that face and seemed capable of crushing Kain with one swipe.

Lancing out behind that massive fish like face was the long serpentine body of the snake monstrosity he had seen in the first set of visions from the tablets.

**_"Unite what has been set asunder."_**

Kain sat up, gasping for breath; his eyes wide in awe.

Ajatar backed of from him, her wings half spread in alarm.

-

**_"I awoke from the nightmare, with a terrible thirst in my mouth and the palpable awareness of time having past."_**

-

He took a moment to regain his sense of location, finding himself lying on the ground just outside Vorador's forge where Ajatar had dragged him. Evidentially he had collapsed again. Once again the light was different indicating the passage of time, yet not as much as before.

The visions he had seen this time made no sense. What did this all mean? Was he truly being guided or was this some fakery concocted by the False God to lure him astray? How could Raziel fight himself? That defied basic logic. And what of Vorador's plight and that… that snake like thing that followed him through the dreams?

With a sudden start he remembered what else he had seen.

"How long have I been unconscious?" He asked, looking up at the grandmaster of the Serioli standing above him.

She hesitated for a moment.

"About an hour." She said then eventually, her expression one of disturbed confusion at her eyes studied his face. "You were asleep longer the last time."

Kain grunted and made his way back to his feet unaided.

"Perhaps I am growing more used to the experience." He surmised running a hand over his face to rub his eyes.

Ajatar watched him, her lips pursed. Kain turned to look at her, returning her gaze with his own steady one.

"Who are you Vampire?" She asked of him in a near hushed whisper, her voice tense and reeking of hope and anticipation. "How can you do all this?"

Kain smiled sardonically at her.

"My name is Kain." He told her, deliberately leaving a pause where she still looked at him expectantly. "But that is not the answer to the question you really want to ask is it?"

Ajatar swallowed hard once, almost trembling. Kain knew what she suspected but could also tell that she dared not assume such a thing, her deep routed cynicism about the prophecy and the state of affairs in Nosgoth would not let her believe such a wondrous thing.

"Ba'al told me only one being was supposed to seek these tablets…" She began but Kain raised a hand to cut her off, his head cocked to one side.

"Be silent." He said abruptly, his eyes narrowing. Faintly, off in the distance he could hear the mutterings of a large number of people. His sense of smell, far greater than Ajatar's, could also pick up the unpleasantly familiar stench of vampire dead. "Something is wrong."

Without waiting to see her confused reaction, Kain turned to face the citadel up towards the higher chambers. Smoke still rose up into the sky but the fires had gone out and all was silent.

Which meant that the ships blockading the citadel had ceased their attacks. That in turn meant one of two things. They had given up and gone away, or the battle was over and the humans had seized the Citadel.

Kain felt that the latter was far more likely.

In any event, he was soon proved correct. Among the still smoking ruins of the Citadel, the Seraphim walked in victorious strides. The werewolves had been called back by their masters, harshly whipped into meekness and collars placed around their necks.

The fate of these poor mutants when they eventually escaped their bonds was to wander through the outlands and wilderness until their extinction. Kain supposed that they might very well be the most pitiful species in Nosgoth's history, created for war, used up and then left to die in the cold.

Before the main fortress, the Seraphim had gathered in a large group. Kain, with Ajatar following closely behind, were able to see it from a distant vantage point of a ledge.

The grandmaster of the Serioli paled at the sight of so many winged bodies all around, hacked and mutilated almost beyond recognition.

Kain, more hardened to that sort of thing, frowned when he saw the young adolescent Moebius at the front, his venomous staff with its glowing orb held high.

-

**_"The scene before me was more than familiar. An execution ground, Moebius favourite kind of amusement. Corpses lined the ground all around him and even as a youth he relished the blood and slaughter."_**

-

There was a winged ancient lying at Moebius' feet. He had been stripped, badly beaten and was covered in blood and one of his wings was hanging askew and torn. Two of the Serephim stood on either side of him, their blades held just over his back in a ready position to plunge down.

Ajatar breathed in sharply through her teeth and drew one of her short blades, preparing to rush forward. Before she could give them away, Kain lashed out and grabbed her by the arm.

"Let me go!" The grandmaster demanded hoarsely, looking back at him with a stricken face. Kain shook his head with a frown.

"It's too late for him." He told her.

Crotched there, broken and battered was the first Balance Guardian Ba'al Zebur. A cut was running down one side of his face, leaving only one half of his face visible to the crowd of warriors and soldiers around him.

Moebius walked up to him, sneering that loathsome sneer of his and then knelt down to look directly into the face of his captor.

Kain quickly glanced around the plaza. There was no sign of Mortanious here.

"Ba'al Zebur, you have been judged guilty before the eyes of humanity for crimes against our species." Moebius began, his grey eyes locked into those of Ba'al who stared back just as harshly. "Do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out?"

One of the men beside Ba'al grabbed his head and jerked his head up so that the leering and mocking crowd could see his face.

Ba'al endured the punishment without as much as a whimper of pain to betray his dignity. He looked Moebius squarely in the face.

"I have no words of wisdom for cowards and sneak thieves." He said, and then spat on the ground between his tormentors feet; a mixture of saliva, blood and broken teeth. "I have played my part, do what you will."

Moebius' face contorted into a disgusted sneer as he stood back up.

"It is the judgement of the human guardians of the Circle of Nine, that you shall suffer the painful death you and the rest of your kind deserve." He declared, turning to look back at the warriors behind him, who each held cowed before them one of the shackled and chained werewolves.

"Food for the wolves!" With that declaration, the Seraphim reared back their whips and lashed their dogs, goading them into a maddened frenzy and howls of frustration, rage and agony. "The final ignoble death of the last vampire Guardian." Moebius added, stepping out of the way. He sneered at Ba'al one last time. "I can think of nothing more fitting."

Once Moebius had stepped out of the way, the two warriors standing at Ba'al's guards broke and ran out to either side just as the werewolves were released.

Ajatar tried several times to break out of Kain's grip as Ba'al was set upon by tearing claws and ripping teeth, each time weaker than the last. When it was finally and obviously too late, Kain relented and let her go.

She ran forward two steps before she stooped, knowing herself the truth. With a shudder of horror and mourning, she turned away.

-

**_"So passes Ba'al Zebur, the Lord on High and the first of the Balance Guardians. He could not have known the full extent of the events he foretold nor their non linear nature but in time they would bare the hope for a race damned by all others. His sacrifice and the sacrifices of all others after him would not be in vain." _**

-

Moebius chuckled as the werewolves finished their work, turning to address the crowd.

"The city is ours!" He shouted to a massive cheer, swords and axes rose in the air in accompaniment. "Let this day forever mark when God smiled down upon us and showered us with grace! This is the age of Man!"


	26. Young Necromancer

The two of them moved in silence for quite some time as they moved through the empty corridors of the Citadel. After this cold animosity that had grown between them became unbearable, Ajatar swung around to confront him.

Her golden eyes were ablaze with anger, lips drawn back over her fangs.

"Why didn't you help him?!" She demanded, almost spitting in her anger. Kain did not meet her eyes just at that moment, drawing in a breath and setting his shoulders firmly.

Silence endured once more, the grandmaster keeping her expression of fierce anger and resentment fixed upon her face.

"There was nothing to be done." Kain replied in a flat voice, almost dead. "His fate had been sealed long before I set out upon this road."

Ajatar walked in front of him, her wings fluttering in her characteristic display of irritation, her feathers rustling against each other.

"What sort of reply is that?" The grandmaster asked of him, raising a talon to him threateningly. "You make excuses!"

Kain stared her down, his eyes locked on hers now that she was directly in front of him. Eventually she lowered her hand from him and half turned, still breathing heavily in anger.

"He was the Balance Guardian! We could have saved him!"

Kain just shook his head at her.

"No… no we could not." He said, explaining as if he would to some inexperienced fledgling, know full well that when Ajatar became emotional she was not prone to reason. "The fact of this matter is indisputable."

Despite his words however, it had taken a great deal of self control not to immediately rush to Ba'al's aide. Feeding the Guardian to the wolves had been the victory of a coward and deprived of any honour whatsoever.

That self superior smirk on the young Moebius' face had enflamed him and made him wish with all his soul that he had been free to charge straight out there and plunge the Reaver into his chest a second time.

"If he had not died here this day I would not even exist." He contented himself by saying, comforted only by the fact that at least this was true.

Ajatar however was not to be consoled and paced away from him, her wings still rustling nosily.

"You speak gibberish!" She accused, but then stopped almost in mid thought and turned to look at him with piercing eyes. "Who … what are you Kain? Why are you even here?"

Kain's expression slowly turned sardonic and he smiled.

"Would you believe me even if I told you?" He asked Ajatar's face began to fill with a sort of an aching yearning, desperation for hope of any kind where there had been none before. Once again she could not quite bring herself to believe what she must surely suspect.

If she had had the tablets, even for a short about of time, she would know the importance of the Scion of Balance.

"Ba'al spoke to me of…" She started but then stopped. She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself to cross that line. "…of the one who would come in our twilight to seek the tablets."

Kain smiled at her, a little more warmly than before.

"Why ask if you already know?"

Her expression turned awed for a moment and then she turned to hide her face, unwilling to betray herself in a moment of weakness. Kain pretended not to see as she collected herself, recovering her demeanour and calming her taught emotions.

"Now come… we have work to do." He told her, striding past down the corridor. They had lingered here long enough. Kain knew he had to act quickly before the third Tablet of Dark Fable past beyond his reach.

"What work?" She asked after him. When Kain did not reply, she called after him again. "If you are who I think you are why do you do nothing to right the wrongs committed here?"

-

**_"She could not understand my purpose here was not to prevent preordained events but to understand them so that the future might not follow the same path. And I was not hypocritical enough to ask her to trust me, when I did not fully trust her."_**

-

The invading Seraphim army were concentrating on flushing out any survivors in the Citadel's labyrinthine underbelly and so had left the main castle like building that made the cities apex mostly alone, but the vision had showed him a chamber in this now ruined fortress and he knew it is there he must go.

Ajatar followed him, unable to do much else at this point. The city had been taken and as a soldier, her responsibility was also to retrieve the Tablets from the hands of her enemy and to deny them any advantage they could gain from their possession.

Ascending the tower like building, they did encounter a small group of Seraphim guards and their leashed werewolf.

Kain charged into their midst before they could cry out in alarm. The Reaver screamed, claiming the soul of the wolf and the men around him were carved by talons and blade. Blood and worse was splattered arose the walls and Ajatar watched him in his carnage mutely, unconcerned by the savagery or even flinched when he satisfied his hunger on a struggling man; draining him nearly completely of blood and then letting the limp corpse drop down to the ground.

He glanced back at her once as he whipped his mouth clean with the side of his wrist. She met his gaze once and then walked on past him, taking the lead.

And so it was she who entered that chamber first. Kain heard her hiss in alarm and then heard the rustle of her feathers as anger began to control her once again.

"YOU!" She began in a low, savage undertone.

Kain came into the room after her.

The chamber was the same one had had stood in before, watching over the ruined Pillars of Nosgoth just after his battle with the False God. In this era, the room was whole and the only way to see the outside was through the elaborate window facing around the outside.

Nine chairs stood in the centre of the room, forming a circle facing the window.

Standing there, looking around those windows towards the nine shafts of pure marble in the distance, was a young human dressed in red. He had slicked back, raven black hair and archaic golden armour across his arms and legs. Slowly he turned to face them and Kain recognised him instantly.

-

**_"And so once more I came face to face with my creator, the Necromancer Mortanius. I encountered him as I had never beheld him before; a young man, barely older than twenty five. Yet even when supported by the energies of youth his demeanour was one of grave detachment."_**

-

Ajatar, with fierce determination, drew her two short blades her wings slowly spreading out either side.

"You…quisling." Her voice held more venom in it than Kain had ever heard her use. "Ba'al trusted you!" Before she could do something rash, the vampire walked forward to block her off.

Mortanius was here alone, with no escort or guards of any kind. Kain also did not see any sign of the tablet here at all. He frowned at this ominous scene before him.

The young necromancer regarded them both with no sign of recognition. As this was centuries before even the birth of his human life, Kain doubted Mortanious would know him.

"Have you ever wondered if, when you set yourself upon a course of action, if what you are doing is the right thing?" Mortanious asked then, his voice echoing in the vaulted chamber. "No matter how black and white the situation may seem?" His eyes looked from Kain to Ajatar and back again.

"When I captured Ba'al…" He started and Kain had to put an arm out in front of the grandmaster to prevent her from rushing at him. "When I captured Ba'al it was strange." The young necromancer carried on despite the interruption. "It was as if he knew I was coming and was waiting for me."

Mortanious turned to pace along the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on the two of them.

"He put up no fight or struggle. He accepted his fate and waited merely for the brief chance to talk to me."

"And why was that?" Kain asked in reply, matching the cold tone. Mortanious stopped and considered, as if unsure of his words.

"He told me…" He started, then shook his head and began to chuckle. His expression became amusingly confused, as if something had happened which had paradoxically shaken him and yet amused him at the same time. "He told me that he forgives me for what I was doing." He said. "That no matter what I did or would do that I would always be his best and most treasured pupil."

With a snarl, the grandmaster of the Serioli barged past Kain.

"And yet you betrayed him!" She accused. Mortanious tried for an unconcerned look but he was little more than a youth in this day and age and he did not pull it off very well, his inexperience causing him to take a reflective step backwards.

"Consider this from our perspective." He said, perhaps a tad too quickly. "Humanity is treated like a slave race, there for the convenience of their overseers."

The necromancer raised his arms up high and gestured around him to the citadel itself.

"We served you, helped build your cities and fight your wars." He swung his arms down then in disgust. "Yet this was not enough. You came to our homes seeking blood to drink and even our children to steal… to be turned into monstrosities by the Audron." He shuddered involuntarily. "That would have been my own fate had I not acted."

This he added almost in a whisper, before returning to full voice.

"If the circumstances were reversed and it was us doing the same to you… would you not rise up in opposition?"

Kain considered him.

"I already have." The vampire said whimsically. Mortanious managed a half smile of his own.

"Then you understand us."

"But do you?" Kain put in quickly and the young Necromancer frowned at him. "I see the doubt in your eyes and hear the uncertainty in your voice. Do you even believe in what you are doing?"

Mortanious breathed out through his nose and his shoulders slumped. Kain saw him now as he had never seen him before... a completely unsuited youth being thrust into a position he should never have to bare. The years would harden him considerably but Mortanious had started out small and afraid.

"Moebius has the conviction of his faith to help him excuse the butchery." The necromancer said. "I do not have that same luxury." Then he laughed, a sound with no mirth. "Is it not an absurd irony? The Guardian of Death does not enjoy killing?"

Kain shared in the joke, chuckling with him much to Ajatar's annoyed dismay. Then the laughter stop and there was prolonged silence afterwards.

"But my own personal feelings do not matter." Mortanious began, this time far more ominously. His upper body tilted forward and his hands moved out either side, fingers arched. "Once your kind might have been noble and majestic… but you are little more than a vermin pestilence now and the world will be well rid of you. "

"Enough banter, you traitor!" Ajatar declared. "You will pay for your deceit and your abandonment!"

"Indeed, enough of this." Mortanious swung his arms out and instantly his entire form was surfaced with a pale sickly radiance. Kain could seen see the necromancer's bones through his flesh as the light he was generating past down his arms and into his hands, culminating between his fingers.

"If you have come for my head, then by all means take it from me if you can!" The necromancer clapped his hands together in front of his chest and a pulsing wave of energy shot forth from his hands, passing out through the room. As it moved, astral figures seemed to conjure themselves out of thin air.

Ghosts and shades summoned from the underworld, crying out as if pain from being forced into physical form.

Torn from their spectral realm, these creatures were maddened and frenzied as Mortanious directed them forward to the attack.


	27. Spectral

Kain grimly drew the Reaver in both hands as Mortanious finished summoning whatever thralls he deemed necessary to confront them. There were ghouls and ghosts in the air, shapeless things ripped from the ether by the necromancer and goaded into attacking them.

Kain had encountered some of these beings before. He recognised beings made out of pure darkness with claws only just perceivable on the outside of their form.

There were other creatures, less recognisable. Some were swirling masses of vapour with eyes that glared at them hungrily, long lathering tongues snaking down to the floor. The biggest of this rabble of spectral entities had a large body that sprawled out on long and thin armoured legs. They looked like warped and unnatural crabs, their jaws messily wide and filled with teeth that lanced off in all directions.

Once his personal army was before him, Mortanius threw both outs out in front of himself projecting before himself a barrier of energy that distorted his image as if being seen through badly produced glass.

-

**_"Mortanious was no fool and knew that while his magic was of the most potent sort, he was no warrior. So he absented himself from the scene of battle once his minions had been called to deal with us. He had the Tablet and I had to retrieve it from him at all costs, but also ensuring that Ajatar in her haste to avenge Ba'al's murder did not kill him. I needed the Necromancer alive for without him I would not exist."_**

-

Ajatar took several steps back in alarm as the small army of spectral enemies arranged themselves for battle, crying out for blood. Her gaze was fixed on the largest, the crab like beast with dozens of small green eyes across the top of its head.

Far more used to seeing bizarre creatures, Kain was able to note things about these beasts that might have been overlooked in the hat of the movement. Their forms were shimmering, no one part of their forms solid for less than a few minutes. The physical world was not suited for them and they manifested here only propelled by the Necromancer's own magic. But as young and inexperienced as he was, Mortanious was having trouble sustaining the presence of them all.

Kain just sighed and shook his head. Mortanious as an adult had been a challenge for him when he had been a fledgling. Now that the ages and experiences were reversed, there was simply no contest.

The crab was the first of the beasts to attack, slamming its front leg don towards the grandmaster; who with a flutter of her wings swung back out of the way. The attacking limb however past through the ground some ways before coming back up, as if it wasn't solid.

In retaliation, Ajatar slammed her hands together to call upon the Serioli discipline of air. Combining the powers of the mind and dimension, she summoned a gale within the confines of the chamber and directed the moving air directly towards the creature. The crab was undaunted, but a few of the beings around it with looser forms were blown back a few feet; parts of their form tearing away with the force of the rush.

The crab screeched and lashed out again, this time catching Ajatar across the shoulder with the tip of its stabbing limb. When it struck her the creature was very solid and the force of the blow knocked her completely across the room until she rolled to a stop by the wall.

From that display, Kain observed that only certain forces worked on these partly manifested beings. Stuck wavering between this world and the one from which they came, their bodies were in such a state of flux that was possible physical blows could not hurt them but attacks by insubstantial forces could tear at their very fabric.

With the Reaver still in hand, the vampire darted in close to the crab. It swung about to face him, scuttling forward to meet his challenge as he had half expected that it would.

When it came within striking distance, Kain swung the Reaver around to test his theory. It felt as if he were swiping at air, the blade not touching anything solid enough to hit but the Reaver did let out a screech as its power hurt the creature. The crab screamed and backed off, holding its front legs out defensively in front of it.

Kain darted again, swinging the sword at its legs; sensing rather than feeling the affect of Raziel's spiritual energy against the creature.

The other spectral beasts, goaded on by the Necromancer, advanced quickly. Shades tore across the ground at him, claws ready to strike him down from behind. Kain swung about in mid swing, slicing several of them across their bodies. The two nearest screeched and then disappeared, the darkness that made them dissipate under Raziel's spiritual essence.

The others backed off but circled him, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Two darted in from opposite sides, each timing their attack perfectly with the other. Kain faded into mist form immediately and their dark claws passed right through his body, doing him no harm. When they were past, he became whole again and the Reaver struck them with full force; carving through the air that was their bodies and banishing them back to the realm from which they came.

Ajatar was getting back to her feet, unsteadily. She was a good warrior but hardly experienced fighting foes from other realms, left impaired by the unearthliness of the foes that they faced here. Luckily that moment of confusion past swiftly and she again entered the fight, gathering to her the forces of time and energy; pushing them together to culminate in the elemental force of Earth.

The power of Earth, armoured her skin and enhanced her strength, allowing her to serve as a distraction for the crab as it tried to assault Kain while he was busy. Thus enhanced, she was well able now to fend off its attacks against her and even do some damage, the creature more affected by the energy she was using than by her short blades.

Free to focus on the shades, Kain set into them with a will and they fled before him, afraid to come anywhere close to the Reaver.

Entities like mist came at him, able to swiftly flow around his strikes and staying well away from the blade. They kept their distant, lashing out at him with their arms that elongated and grabs him anywhere they cold. Their touch was icy cold and the mere contact put death into his veins, slowing him down and stiffening his muscles.

Even fading into mist was not enough to disengage their grasping hands. On the verge of being sapped of energy completely, Kain held up his right hand and forged a telekinetic pulse through the augmenting Serioli gauntlet.

The shockwave that past out from him did affect them, throwing them off like they were parchment caught in the wind. Once they let go, Kain felt with a rush his strength return.

Not willing to give them any time to counter, Kain set to them with the Reaver and Raziel screamed his encouragement as the blade swung back and forth.

From behind his shield of energy, Mortanious began to look panicked. The arrogance of youth, of which Kain was no stranger, had made him overconfident and left him facing far more skilled opponents. His capture of Ba'al no doubt had puffed up his ego which had made him choose to fight instead of flee.

Ajatar slashed at the crab with her twin blades, the power of earth surging through her as a conduit, caused the entity to bleed with each strike. Green power, pulsing with energy, splattered across the floor each time. Kain had seen that kind of blood before, when he had made the False God bleed.

Where these creatures and that disgusting parasite of the same ilk? Kain did not have the luxury of time to ponder this at the present moment however.

With the mist wraiths beaten off, other stranger beings leapt to the attack. They were vaguely like fish, only with lobster like pincers on the end of spindly arms on either side. Their rear half ended in a mass of writhing tentacles and their eyes pulsed green.

They swept around Kain in perfectly formation, lashing out with their pincer whenever they got close.

One of them struck him across the back and its blow was icy, just like the mist wraiths. Only they did not need to stay in physical contact with him in order to drain him of his energy.

This must be the nature of the creatures of that spectral realm, devourers of essence, surviving by stealing energy from other beings.

Realising that he could not stand still and give them an easy target, Kain advanced and leapt up at them.

The Reaver caught one of the hunting Archons which had struck him across the chest and with a scream it disappeared. Kain felt within himself a surge and return of strength as the invisible thread that had allowed the creature to drink his power snapped with its disappearance.

The others changed their tactics at this point, staying up higher than he could reach and when passing overhead a random one of their number would drive down on him like a bird of prey.

Hardly in the mood for games, Kain raised his right hand and unleashed another force push at them through the gauntlet. It had the same affect on them as it had on the mist wraiths, pushing them back and forcing them into a spiralling confusion in mid air.

Several of them descended two low and Kain dispatched them with the Reaver and each time he struck them they vanished, returning whence they came.

Free of spectral minions for now, Kain turned with a savage look on his face to confront the young Mortanious who watched from behind his shield.

The boy's earlier confidence had all but disappeared now and a wild look was in his eyes as he stared back at the vampire who began to approach him, step by terrorising step.

"Stay back dark one! You shall not take me!" He declared; throwing more energy into the shield as Kain cut his way through his minions towards him.

Kain grimly pressed on.

When he reached the shield edge, Mortanious did what Kain expected him to do and panicked. He threw off his shield, discharging it directly into the vampires face while trying to translocate himself away.

As he began to vanish, Kain engulfed himself in his own teleportation and followed after him.

The young necromancer did not get far, moving himself simply around the room in his haste to get away.

Kain was never far behind him and the fear he saw in the human's face increased with each jump. Kain knew precisely what he was doing of course, goading and distracting the Necromancer into making stupid decisions.

Even now the spectral creatures he had summoned were only half there, fading away as his concentrate slipped away from maintaining their presence.

To make him loose total control, Kain anticipated Mortanious' next jump and when the frightened boy manifested Kain did so directly in front of him; barely a foot away from his face.

Mortanious stumbled back, eyes wide in fear. His concentration shattered and one by one his summoned creatures disappeared, fading away to be returned to their proper place.

All but one. The crab entity was still there, greatly reduced in form but definitely still there.

"Kill him!" Ajatar shouted over, dodging around the ghostly animal as its front legs stabbed at her again. She was straining against the attacks, not able to dodge the lethal blows while still maintaining her elemental connection with earth.

Kain frowned and then simply drew his hand back and lashed out, striking Mortanious across the face. He did not use his talons nor did he ball his fist, so in essence all he did was slap him.

All the same the blow knocked the young man down to his knees.

With that, the crab squealed like a pig, wavered and then disappeared. Ajatar gratefully let her power dissipate and hung there, wings drooping to either side of her exhausted body.

"I have no desire to kill some inexperienced whelp." Kain remarked, looking down at the cowering boy at his feet in disgust. In this era, Mortanious was far from the proud and powerful Necromancer that he would one day become. He had much to learn yet.

"He will get what is coming to them in the fullness of time anyway."

The grandmaster looked up, her golden eyes bulging.

"You're just going to let him get away with what he and these… these vile humans have done?!" She demanded, her hair coming out of its usual slicked back position. Her fangs were bared and Mortanious shrank back from them.

"I did not say that." Kain replied with a snort, without much enthusiasm for another argument. "But history abhors paradox and I am not going to perpetrate one now, not when finally destiny appears to be on my side, or at the very least cooperating for once."

He pinned the young Guardian of the Pillar of Death to the floor with his foot.

"And you boy." He stated. "Where is the Tablet that Ba'al gave to you?"

Mortanious struggled with the talons pressed against his chest.

"Speak and you get to keep your head." Kain added.

"I have it." The boy said. He held up one hand and concentrated quickly. Kain felt a surge as something was translocated through space. There was a short flash and in the Guardian's hand was the Third Tablet of Dark Fable, summoned from wherever Mortanious had stashed his prize.

So he had not shared the fact that he had recovered the item with Moebius, his compatriot in this uprising? Could this be the beginning of the dissention and redeeming path that would occupy the young man's entire life?

The tablet was just like the previous two, again with different writing scrawled across the obsidian surface. Again when he saw it, he felt that same compulsion to immediately seize the item with both hands.

Kain gestured for Ajatar to take it, not yet willing to touch it himself and suffer a collapse as he went once more into a prophetic torpor.

The grandmaster, frowning deeply, came over and nearly wrenched the stone out of the human's hands. Disgust and contempt was written plainly across her face.

Kain retracted his foot, allowing Mortanious to get to his feet.

"You say Ba'al forgives you for this?" Ajatar asked without looking at him. "Well I do not. If I ever see you again I will personally pull out your cowardly spine."

Kain, rather impressed with that threat, added his own remark.

"Flee this place and never return. Your weakness makes you unfit to stand in these hallowed halls."

When Mortanious did not immediately run, Kain bared his fangs at him.

"GO! And maybe the souls of your betters you helped slaughter will forgive you."

With that, Mortanious needed no further encouragement. His startled and terror stricken face vanished as he threw himself into his translocation.


	28. Third Tablet

The Citadel still smouldered in the distance, far now to the North West. The humans were still plundering the city for anything of value. Eventually when their piracy was all done they would leave, the mass majority of them having no interest in social revolution beyond the opportunities for looting.

Ajatar stood on the far bank of that inland sea, watching after the quietly diminishing capital of the Ancients. With the Citadel taken, the Vampire nation had been struck a blow from which it would never recover. The eventual extinction of the blue skinned and winged vampires might take several more centuries but it was inevitable now. The race would fade, leaving only one of their kind left, the line Guardian and survivor – Janos Audron.

Even the Serioli, who survived till now due to their rejection of the mainstream faith in the Wheel of Fate, would fade away to be replaced by their fledglings and then still the humans.

"I will have to return to my warriors." His said without turning around. "I will lead them somewhere secluded, somewhere defensible… where none of this will reach us." She spoke without conviction and Kain knew, just as he did, that her words were hollow. There was no place for them to go. Their era was over.

What was it that the young Moebius had said? This was the age of Man? Perhaps so. Kain remembered, only distantly, vague myths told in the court of Coorhagen where he had grown up. They were stories of valiant warriors beginning the first dynasty of human rule in Nosgoth by slaying the cruel demonic overlords that once dominated them.

Seeing that same tale from a far different perspective now, Kain saw the inert flaw of man. They simply could not accept responsibility for their own actions. They had to continually find a pretext, an excuse and a scapegoat to blame all the evil they were capable of on.

That had born the concept of the devil, a source of all sin and thus has been a fictional character mankind could blame for its own evils. Vampires of course, being inconvenient on the whole for them, had been forever tied to the fictional darkness in the minds of their species.

Perhaps one day there MIGHT be an accord between human and vampire that forever ended hostiles between the two races.

But somehow, Kain very much doubted the likelihood of so benevolent an outcome.

The grandmaster drew herself up and then turned to face him.

"Very well then." She began, holding out to him their prize. "Now that we have a free moment, this belongs to you."

In her hands was the Third Tablet of Dark Fable, wrenched from the thieving hands of the young Mortanious. Looking at it, Kain noticed a difference he had not noticed before. The first tablet had been a very dark shade of blue, the second a black red and this third one was more of a brown colour.

Four Tablets… four elements?

Surely it could not be that simple?

And yet as he approached, now paying full attention to details; he saw the ancient symbol for earth etched into the top of the stone.

Had that first tablet been aligned to the power of water? Had that been why absorbing it had rendered him immune to water's touch?

That pull was there again, the yearning and over eager excitement. Ajatar offered him the tablet with arms outstretched and he gladly took it in both hands.

The expected rush of power was there once more, surging through him and into his very soul.

Still grasping the tablet, Kain dropped down to his knees on the sodden earth; eyes wide as he felt the power pulsate within.

As the two others before, this tablet began to break apart; dissolving into fragments that were drawn through Kain's skin and into his body. When the last of it fed into him, the onset of the visions began.

**_ "The heart that serves its function." _**

Again he heard that booming, unearthly voice as his eyes saw other things than the world around him.

He saw himself as a corpse, human and recently murdered, lying on a stone slab. He was clad in the white steel armour that had shown his human allegiance to the kingdom of Willendorf. The chest plate had been removed and his ribcage wrenched open, the hideous cavity beyond thick with blood.

Standing beside his body, was Mortanious; now far older and fully matured. In one hand the necromancer held a thick serrated scalpel that was caked in blood and had fragments of bone stuck here and there. In the other he held the heart which he had just removed, the human heart.

This he placed to one side into a waiting box and from a separate side dais he lifted up another organ; a heart black in coloration and slimmer. The Heart of Darkness, the heart that rightfully belonged to Janos.

With surgical precision he began to install the heart in his new home; heaving the veins and arteries together like threads. When he was finished, he withdrew his hands and then proceeded to bind the rib cages began together; employing his magic to fuse the bones and repair the torn flesh. When he was finally done with the entire procedure, the only mark on the human Kain's body was the scar inflicted by his cruel impalement.

Slowly, Kain's body began to change, the flesh loosing its bright colour and becoming a paler grey. The black colour leached itself out of his hair, changing it forever to a bright snow white.

The touch of the Necromancer's hand changed the armour he was as well and its colour morphed; the pure white giving way to a raven black.

**_"Prophecy in Motion." _**

Those before him faded as the voice echoed. Before him now was a dead wasteland, one he recognised all too well. The Nosgoth before him was dust, infertile soil and motionless air. The sky was permanently overcast, clogged with smoke from the very smokestacks Kain had ordered built.

Kain found himself looking down a valley of some kind, with an extensive set of ruins nestled in the middle. From above, he recognised the outline of the old city and perceived it to be what remained of Avernus. The old city had been reduced to rubble long ago in an attack led by Zephon and now even its mighty cathedral was a relic, a shadow of its former self.

As Kain watched, the earth began to strain. The sky overhead darkened even more and the clouds themselves almost seemed to tremble. Kain watched in awe as holes tore in the sky itself, letting through flashes of sickly green lightning.

Those lightning bolts tore into the ground surrounded Avernus, ripping holes in the earth itself. Some great and terrible power had been unleashed and the ground received that power, opening up a passage into hell.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of doorways cracked open in the dead earth and out of those doorways marched the Hylden.

They were running, running as fast as they could to jump with glee into even this dead land's embrace. Some of them were weeping, others laughing almost insanely. This was no invasion although there were many warriors with him, but a migration. All of the Hylden, every single one of their kind which had been banished eons ago were leaving the demon dimension and occupying a dead Nosgoth.

**_"Upon the alter of the world."_**

With a flash, this was gone and nine pure marble pillars lanced up into the sky. The Pillars of Nosgoth stood immutable, but despite this sight all was not well.

Their base was awash with blood.

Corpses littered the land around its base, fledglings, humans, winged ancients; all of them wearing the Serioi Armour and carrying weapons forged by the order. At the foot of the pillar of balance, slumped the broke and battered form of the warrior Ajatar had called Ansu.

Parts of him smouldered as if cooked and his wings had been violently torn off, the remnant scattered to either side.

Grasped in the hands of his corpse however was another tablet… the final tablet of Dark Fable. Blood ran down its black surface but it was indeed the final one. As expected, faintly carved into its top was the ancient symbol for Air.

Hopefully, once Kain had it, the riddle surrounding his destiny would finally be answered and he would know for sure what role he would play as Scion of Balance.

Suddenly, everything around was clouds. He was now in the middle of a vast sea of mist, floating high in the sky. Above, he could faintly make out the rays of the sun and below the land were a few dark smudges against the blue sea.

That did not attracted his attention as much as the movement he could see in those clouds, swirling wisps of it indicating that something large was encircling him; swimming in the clouds like a fish in the water.

Occasionally Kain could see illumination, turning to face him as if cast from the eyes of some colossal creature.

"Come forth, monstrosity!" Kain demanded, his voice sounding hollow and echoing as if down to the bottom of some unfathomable deep well.

Whatever was out there was huge, twisting up and over the cloud and then diving back down again, like a whale bursting froth from the sea. Kain caught only glimpses of the creature, seeing a fantastically long dark body. Kain marvelled at how so large a beast could move so quickly.

Then those distant pale lights turned to face him completely. For a moment they hung suspended, and then they became to grow. The lights grew in brilliance, growing larger and their light brighter.

And it was then Kain realised that they were not getting bigger but they were getting closer. Those lights, those eyes, grew impossibly large as the ends of two rows of tusk burst forth from the cloud cover.

**_"The blood of the first born." _**

That same voice declared, almost triumphantly and this time Kain saw that the voice came from directly in front of him; from the baleen covered lips of the creature emerging before him.

Before that face emerged completely, Kain awoke from his trance. It was heavily raining of him, matting his hair and soaking it with mud from the ground. It was the first rain of the new spring, melting all the snow of the winter. The sky was an angry black and grey, the distant call of thunder in the distance.

The Scion of Balance hoisted himself up. Once more there was the sense of time having past, but not as much as before.

Ajatar was still there, standing there watching him with a hopeless expression over her wet face.

"If you are who I think you are..." She began in a dead tone, without even waiting for him to fully rise. "Then what good are you coming in such a late hour?"

Kain swung his head, trying to flick the wet dirt out of his hair.

"Why did you bother coming, Kain?" She demanded of him, her black hair hung over her eyes to hide them. "Just to give us hope when it could not possibly make the least bit of difference?"

"I do whatever I deem necessary to secure the future of the Vampires." He said. Ajatar drew in a sharp breath.

"What future?!" The grandmaster asked with a somewhat hoarse voice. "Have you been blind to all that has taken place around us?"

Kain said nothing to that. Ajatar fluttered her wings, allowing her feathers to rustle in profound irritation. Then they settled and her shoulders slumped.

"Our time is over. The humans will kill us all. This is the twilight of the Vampire race."

There was a silence, and then Kain chuckled.

"Far from it." This remark caused her to look up at him sharply. "In fact, this is only the beginning for our kind."

The grandmaster looked back over her shoulder at the ruined remains of the Citadel, her expression portraying her thought that Kain was mad for saying such a thing with that plain in sight.

"You can not see beyond tomorrow, but I can and have. Our kind will thrive despite all attempts to eradicate us."

He turned then to gaze directly north, towards the nearer towering spectacle of the Pillars that lanced up from the earth to stab into the sky itself.

"And we have one last place to go before we can realise that future."

Ajatar looked at him, her dead eyes maintained but with some effort. The edges of her mouth twitched involuntarily.

"Then you know where the last of the Tablets is?" She asked rhetorically. Kain gave no immediately answer but instead he began to wonder to himself, what incite might he gain from the last tablet? Would all his questions be answered just like that?

He was not stupid enough to entertain even the thought of something that convenient. But still he had come so far now and with the end of this journey coming into sight, he could not slow down.

"Your warriors have recovered it." He said simply. "And they await us at the Pillars." He would say no more. If they were all dead when they got there then he could simply deny all foreknowledge. Ajatar looked up towards the north, following his gaze.

"Very well then." She stated with her eyes in that direction.

With a growing sense of trepidation, Kain set his sights firmly on the pillars and his body dissolved again into bats.

The swarm flew high into the sky, beating their wings almost in unison in their desire to reach the end of their quest.

This time, not startled by Kain's ability to shape shift, Ajatar followed close behind soaring after him on her already tired wings.

The Pillar's beckoned them on and the sight of them was like fire in Kain's blood, making him push his bats harder than they had ever been pushed before. He did not care if he ended up breaking all their wings.

Ajatar pushed herself as well, flying as hard as she could in order to keep up with him. She fell a little behind but Kain did not let up for a moment, his destiny almost within reach.


	29. Unveiling

Gratefully, the bats came down together in the clearing of the green surrounding forest and condensed back into Kain's normal form. He paid for pushing the wings of his flying rodents then, as he could feel his muscles aching from the long and fast flight here.

He was exhausted from his long journey in this era and realised that he had not fed since he had been at the Serioli stronghold. He would have to find sustenance to replenish spent energies quite soon.

The Pillars awaited him just above the next line of trees, towering above into immensity; taller than any mountain and far more permanent. Now out of the rightful hands of their creators.

-

"_**The turning point and the passing of the reigns. With his massacre of the Vampire Guardians, Moebius had ensured that mankind would govern the Pillars for centuries to come. With humans in control of these marble columns, the Binding would decay bit by bit. The pure white visage of perfection before him was little more than a façade for the decay that Nupraptors' poison would eventually make visible."**_

-

Not for the first time, Kain felt that strange sense of foreboding, of something approaching. Something important was going to happen and very soon, but he could not see what that might be.

There was indeed blood at the Pillars as his vision has showed, but not that of the Serioli. Piled up like a barricade were the hacked corpses of werewolves and their Serephim, stacked on atop the other forming a defensive wall of dead flesh.

Beyond this macabre display were hastily strung up tents, lining all around the Pillar's base. The encampment was shoddy and makeshift, thrown up perhaps only recently and many supplies had been left stacked everywhere.

Slumped near the foot of the Pillar's base was a winged ancient, looking battle weary, tired and worn out. He held his spear as if it weighed as much as a bolder and was fighting to keep himself awake.

His hearing was sharp enough though. As Kain approached, the façade of fatigue seemed to melt away from him. He scrambled to his feet, Spear held ready like a javelin in a throwing position.

"You!" He began in alarm and Kain recognised him as one of the warriors Ajatar had had as her escort to the Cave of the Seer, although greatly reduced in spirit. "Where is the grandmaster?!" He demanded, stepping forward still holding his weapon high. "What have you done with her?"

Fortunately before the situation could escalate into violence, Ajatar came winging out of the sky landing with a heavy thump just behind Kain. Once glance was enough for her to take in the situation.

"Stand down Kralek!" She ordered him and soldiers training made the winged ancient snap to attention.

"My apologises Grandmaster." He said. "But I thought…"

"Well you were wrong!" Ajatar snapped, glancing around at the camp, her face creasing in stern disapproval for their presence here which was clearly not on her orders. "What's going on here? Who is in charge?"

"Warrior Ansu, grandmaster." Kralek was young and had stayed young due to the Hylden's curse of immorality. His demeanour matched his appearance and he seemed to be the permanent awkward youth. "Human reinforcements arrived after you left and we…" He paused and cleared his throat. "They over ran us."

Ajatar stared at him incredulously.

"They what…" She started.

"They broke down our walls and they were everywhere, sending in their… their dogs to kill anyone they could find. Ansu rallied what was left of our kind and came here, to the only defensively position we left. We had to abandon the Stronghold." The warriors hesitated "Or at least, those were his orders… and in your absence he was the ranking officer."

That bleak look of hopelessness came back to Ajatar's face, magnified many times by this intelligence. Even Kain had supposed that the Serioli stronghold, mighty how at least appeared, would hold out far longer than that. And now were the remaining Serili ancients forced to retreat here, the only place that they might feel safe.

Kain glanced around the clearing, noting how many Winged Ancients there were present. They had brought no fledglings with them and so their numbers were very low. He counted no more than about fifty five.

It was entirely possible than with the exception of Janos Audron, these were the only Ancients left.

Ajatar was making her way up towards the pillars, besides which the largest tent had been pitched.

Out of this came the axe wielding warrior that Kain had seen before, the one with the scar raking his face. He nodded to her as they approached.

"Grandmaster." He said politely, making no attempt to apologise for his unsanctioned expedition here.

"Ansu." She greeted back in the same tone. "Did you order our forces here?"

He nodded.

"Yes I did." He replied and Kain, following behind, could see the hollow dead look in his eyes.

Ajatar stared back at him with much the same expression.

"Then is this the only place left?" Her voice was toneless. Ansu nodded.

"Our scouts report that all of the Citadel's in the west have been assaulted. We have had no word from any of them. Our supplies our low and it will not be long before we are surrounded and cut off from any hope of escape." He gestured at the corpses around them. "These were merely the guards the traitor Guardian had set to stand watch over the Pillars. When they do not report back to them I am certain our presence he will be noticed."

Ajatar drew in a breath, nodded once and then turned to face Kain.

"Well then, Vampire… where is this hope you have promised?" She asked him, although not challenging. "Every city has fallen, every army defeated, every home burned, every leader murdered. And so Kain… where is your hope?"

Kain glanced up towards Ansu, studying him for a moment.

"You recovered one of Ba'al's Tablets?" He asked him, pleased by provoking the Ancient into the first stunned look he'd seen on his face.

Ajatar glanced between them both, before she too looked inquiringly at her warrior.

"Well have you?" She asked and when the question came from her, Ansu managed a tight and controlled nod.

"Yes." He replied. "It was seized by human raiders in the cloister where it was protected. We routed them on our way here and took it back." His eyebrow drew down into a deep, disgusted frown. "We lost five of our best warriors reclaiming that useless piece of obsidian rock."

Ignoring his pessimism, Kain pressed on.

"Where is it now?" He demanded.

"I don't answer to you, creature." Ansu replied sternly.

"Just tell him where it is." Ajatar said, cutting him off. Ansu looked back at her, a bit dismayed but Ajatar's stern expression did not waver and he capitulated and stepped aside to allow them access to the tent.

The inside was dirty, stacked with containers and sacks, all filled with spare weapons and armour; some ropes and stacks of corked bottles, each one containing sweet red blood. So this was how the Serioli had maintained good relations with their Feral Human neighbours was he wondered? Farming a small amount of blood and storing it away, rationing its usage. A clever system to be sure but manageable only for a small population of vampires and in a remote region.

Kain took a bottle up from one of the crates.

"I hope you do not mind?" He asked, lifting it up for them to see.

"Not at all." Ansu remarked without looking back. Kain needed no further incentive and drank. Despite being bottled it was remarkably fresh and as it slide down his throat he felt the lost strength return. His aches and pained began to soothe away and vanish and after he had drunk the entire bottle, he was quite refreshed.

Then he turned to where Ansu was standing, at a makeshift table made of a plank of wood stretched across two crates. Upon this was circular item, wrapped in clothe.

The moment Kain saw it; he felt that same peculiar pull he had always felt when he came within the presence of one of the four tablets.

His mouth went dry despite the drink he had just had.

Just as Ansu was preparing to unwrap it however, with a colossal booming noise the ground beneath their feet gave a tremendous leap; as if pushed up from below. Crates fell over and bottles smashed in the shock of that earthquake. Panicked cries and shouts of alarm erupted from outside.

Kain was the first one to dart back outside, his warrior's instincts overcoming the desire for the Tablet. He was barely out of the tent when he skidded to a stop at the sight.

-

"_**So, my enemy strikes at me directly." **_

-

Was he desperate? Did he sense Kain reaching the end of his quest and now lashed out himself?

The slimly limbs were tearing up through the ground like ravenous serpents, long green undulating tentacles from beneath the earth itself; manipulating limbs that seemed to pulsate with the stolen energy of consumed souls.

Serioli ancients were quickly stirred from their fatigue by the busting earth around the, scrabbling to take flight like frightened birds.

Kain leapt to the attack, the Reaver screaming in vengeful anger as it bit down into the nearest limb.

The tentacle trembled in pain as the blade sliced through its flesh, the green pus like blood filed with energy seeping out.

The ancients around him seemed to have completed lost their warriors spirit, confusion and chaos reigned. Kain did not understand why they were beset so with fear? True this adversary was like no other but that any foe would make trained warriors react like frightened children?

Dozens of them were screaming in terror as the tentacles latched onto their bodies and draged them across the ground, as if fully intent on pulling them underground to the grave itself.

Then when he saw the uncomprehending expressions on their faces, he understood.

They could not see him.

It was as the Seer and Raziel had alluded to. Without the purification of spirit that lay within him, no one mortal could even see the False God. As such, it appeared to them as if the ground were exploding on its own and as the monstrous appendages battered against them, it were as if they were fighting some invisible enemy.

-

"_**Veiled as they were, the Serioli could do nothing to aid me or even defend themselves as to them the False God was a phantom, no more real than the monsters made up to frighten child. That would have to be remedied." **_

-

As soon as he made that decision, he felt a sort of profound click inside himself, as if he had just placed an important piece into a jigsaw puzzle.

He knew exactly what he had to do. He wasn't sure how he knew but he just did.

He shook that sensation off and quickly turned to face Ajatar, who was standing in the mouth of the tent with an astonished expression on her face.

"You want hope?" He asked her bluntly. She just stared at him, bewildered. Having no time or patience, he followed his directed instincts and pulled her towards the Pillars and the Balance Pillar in the centre. "Then hope you shall have."

Around them, the fury of the False God raged, his many arms thrashing the ground to ensnare anyone they could.

But, Kain noticed, would not come close to the Pillars. It was as if the Pillars themselves were keeping its arms at bay, repelling them like two identical poles of a magnet.

Once the two of them stood in the centre of the Pillar's base, Kain turned and laid both hands on her shoulders.

She looked directly at him, her face a conflict of fear, horror, awe and even a deep yearning as if she too could sense this to be a pivotal moment.

Remembering how it felt when he had given this gift to the Seer, he began to push the spiritual energy inside himself into her. It travelled down his arm and then dispersed into her body.

She nearly recoiled at first, but then froze as if locked in place. Her eyes bulged and then began to pulse with some deep inner light. The ultimate element, something she could only create for flashes of a time before, was now pouring through her body. Beams of light poured out through her eyes and mouth and her wings flew out to either side and they two seemed to now radiate with purifying flame.

In Kain's grasp, the Reaver flared to life, bursting into that very same first and Raziel's spirit sang its vengeful benediction.

"A gift given to me and to be past on… hope."

Augmented somehow by the Pillars it almost seemed, the light burst forth and engulfed all those standing within range of its radiance.

-

"_**It was a lifting experience to watch the veil being lifted collectively and perhaps even more disturbing to see the horror on their faces as they all began to perceive the nature of their unseen enemy." **_

-

The Serioli, now seeing the true enemy of all life on Nosgoth, recoiled from the horror of the tentacles all around them. Their earlier dismay at being attacked by an enemy they could not see was now worsened by the nightmarish form of this False God, displayed for them all to see.

Ajatar collapsed to her knees, the light finally fading from her.

"Wha… what is this?" She asked in a voice that was barely a terrified whisper.

Kain turned to face the tentacles, all of which were writhing as if burned, the light of spirit causing tremendous damage to their skin and forcing them to retreat back underground one by one.

"The ultimate enemy."


	30. The Keeper

The tablet in his hands once again broke apart into tiny fragments that were drawn into his very being as if he had breathed them in. As the particles of the last of the Tablets of Dark Fable were absorbed, Kain felt himself toppling backwards as his senses were wrenched away from reality to come other place.

This time it felt profoundly different, as if all the pieces of the four tablets within him were collecting into one and unleashing this new experience on had unprepared self.

The faces of the Serioli gathered around him faded and darkness prevailed, a never ending darkness. It was a black void, stretching out beyond even the mind's wildest imagination; on and on and on to endless infinity. Time was infinite as Kain already knew, as indeed was Space.

Spotted here and there off in this unending black where the twinkling stars which had so vexed Kain before, with their twinkling control and signs, controlling the destiny of the mortals below. From this vantage point, the illusion was shattered and Kain saw the folly of astrology. The stars were not fixed in the heavens as he had thought but their positions changed as he moved, dispelling the façade,

Kain smiled to himself. The stars had no more control over destiny than had any other source of light and with that knowledge Kain felt freer than he had in centuries.

He was moving he was sure of that and as he gradually became aware of his new surroundings he could feel that the ground beneath his feet was alive. Around him were thick spurs jutting out of the fleshy ground with tuffs of green fur sticking up here and there through the blubber like skin.

The long body of the creature he had seen more than once in his visions stretched out behind him, long and whip like against the darkness of the void.

"Kain." That voice, that same loud voice from his previous visions began to him. "Kain." The vampire turned, seeing now that he was standing on top of the huge head he had seen, lined with colossal tusks that framed the whale like head. "The pebble in the pond."

This vision was far more real than the others had been, he found that he could move again and see things as he directed.

The void was bitterly cold, as if there was no warmth in this place.

"Who are you?" Kain asked of the creature, threading carefully down towards the tip of the nose. "What are you?" He jumped back suddenly as the lid of an eye, the size of a house, peeled back. The glowing luminosity of the wet orb glared at him, a pupil just visible through the light.

"A Keeper." That huge voice replied. "A God."

Kain steadied himself, a frown creasing his face.

"I have met one being already claiming divinity." He said in heavy suspicion and contempt.

"I know." The entity replied apparently not offended. "But in comparison to creatures that walk in the mortal coil, our existence is that of the divine."

Kain walked about the mountainside that was this face, watching as four more eyelids peels back to look at him. There were five eyes, four small ones facing forward with a larger, round on in the centre.

"As you should know Kain, have you not been deified before?" This 'Keeper' asked, almost sardonically. "Did you ever consider yourself a god, even when fledglings by the thousands bowed at your feet and offered you sacrifices upon their alters?"

Kain considered that. He had enjoyed the fruits of power, well earned after his long struggle and conquest of Nosgoth but he had never let it go to his had so much that he thought himself a deity.

He had encouraged the belief that he was a god to the vampires in order to encourage loyalty and solidify his hold over the empire, but that had never been his own personal conviction.

"God or mortal, the distinction depends upon perspective." The Keeper added and Kain decided then to change the subject.

"Why am I here?"

"There is a magical operation of Maximum Importance." The Keepr's body coiled then, twisting up and over itself as if it were spinning. The stars around blurred in this barrel roll but surprisingly Kain felt no inertia or even any sense of motion. "And you will be the one to carry it out."

Suddenly, Kain caught sight of that blue orb in the far distant, a spot of colour in the colourless void. Slowly by surely the Keeper was swimming through the nothingness towards it.

"Why me?" The vampire asked. "Why am I, Scion of Balance, entrusted with this 'operation'?"

The Keeper levelled off after a moment, the tip of its mighty tusks now aimed directly at that blue dot.

"Kain… Balance was lost a long time ago, far longer than you realise. The corruption of the Circle, the fall of the Pillars, the Vampire and Hylden war; all these are shadows cast by the true imbalance. And this Imbalance was the reason the Pillars were conceived, the reason I gave to Ba'al Zebur the concept for building them."

"You!" Kain began, nearly spluttering at this intelligence. He could hardly bring himself to contemplate such a staggering revelation, that the Pillar's architecture was not Ba'al at all but rather the creature upon which he stood?

-

**_"For the first time in eons, I was so stunned I felt I needed to sit down." _**

-

"Communication between creatures of linear space and time is difficult for those who dwell beyond times edge." The Keeper explained, elaborating further. "In fact, in essence you are not even talking to me right now. But rather you are interacting with my essence only distantly. Ba'al and the Seer were given information that only together did they interrupt correctly, resulting in the Pillars whose existence corrected the first imbalance."

"What imbalance?" Kain demanded, enthralled by the tale of this creature and his eyes still fixed on that blue dot as it slowly began to grow larger.

"Before the three races of Vampire, Hylden or Human even existed; there were two forces of opposing and equal strength.

These two forces were meant to work together towards one common goal but that equality of antiquity was disrupted by a sin of which you know all to well."

The Keeper's head turned to look to one side.

"Greed." It said and Kain saw that as it travelled in the void, it was not alone.

There was another creature out there, another colossal entity. Its mass was enormous, blocking out the stars it seemed but it was not constant, its form shifted and changed and as Kain watched he saw that its body was a mass of tentacles, waving back and forth as it propelled itself forward.

There was a central core that was solid in the centre but the most part, it was like a giant squid like creature with uncountable numbers of eyes blinking blue against its slimy skin.

It was the False God. Instinctively, Kain went to draw the Reaver only to find that it was not there. It had not followed him into his place. He sternly managed to keep his instinct for battle under control, reminding himself that this was merely a vision.

"Two forces." He repeated, glancing between the distant form of his enemy and the Keeper. "Two Gods."

"The Initiation of a New Aeon." The Keeper said. "When we came to the world you call Nosgoth, it was meant to be a new beginning.

We drifted for eons in the void, passing stars and suns on our journey. Our partnership endured all hardship and strife but when we came to this world of plenty, where we could be nourished and stated…" The entity trailed off that and Kain snorted, realising what was implied and finding some mirth in it.

"And when he saw the banquet before him, he decided he no longer wanted to share." He finished for it.

"Perhaps I am guilty of naivety." The Keeper remarked whimsically. "But having been through so much together, I never suspected him of such callousness."

"Then you are a fool." The vampire told it bluntly. "Then were the Pillar's merely your way of ensuring that if you could not feed, neither could he?"

"You misunderstand." The Keeper said, turning back to face that blue orb in the cosmos that was expanding rabidly. "Sustenance was not the ultimate reason for our journey, or the reason you exist. Before this is over and done, fundamental rules will be changed and even I will not see the end of it.

You will be instrumental in making these changes but you will not be alone in doing so. Your choice in Nosgoth will decide it all. Where it becomes necessary to utter a word."

The blue orb was expanding even more and its glow was magnificent, framed by the biggest star around which it travelled.

So this was Nosgoth as it appeared from the outside? Not a flat disc nor a dome as had been argued over time but a sphere, a jewel in the bleak cosmos.

"You will suffer much before the end of this and be rewarded in more ways than one for your hardship. That which was lost shall be returned and paradox's undone." The Keeper said.

The vampire kept his eyes on the visage of Nosgoth, staring down from heaven itself. Rom here it seemed at no mater how corrupt it might become on the surface, from this vantage point Nosgoth would always be as pure and immaculate.

He felt…humbled.

"What is it I must do?" Kain asked almost in a hushed whisper.

"Be prepared for a long journey yet Kain and it will not be easy, it will be fraught with danger for you and your partner both."

"I have no partner." He replied almost absently.

"Don't you?" The Keeper sounded amused. "The road ahead will be the hardest to travel yet and if you are to succeed, the whole planet must be bathed in blood."

-

**_"With that cryptic remark, I felt myself thrust back violently into the world of 'now'. I awoke from my final vision not with confusion but with clarity. The bully that had driven me so far as stronger than ever and I knew what I had to do." _**

-

As Kain stirred, awakening once more to the present. With him now was a sense of purpose, a renewal of that hope which Raziel had given to him. The Keeper's words had been ambiguous, but not the imprint of knowledge it had left behind. Kain knew precisely where to go now.

It was time to go home.

The Serioli had not moved him from the centre of the Pillars where he had accepted the last Tablet from Ansu, and their number stood there watching him reverently as he roused himself.

Ajatar stood there with her warriors, watching him. She seemed changed to him now, the fatalism fallen away and her eager nature coming through.

"I…" Kain started but then drew himself up, watching them closely to observe their reactions. "We… we have to go." As soon as he used the possessive 'we' the golden eyes lit up in eager anticipation.

Ajatar nodded in compliance.

"Yes we do." She said. Kain started at her for the sudden uncharacteristic submission to his directions when before she had argue with him on nearly every point. He glanced around then at the faces of the winged Vampires around him and each one bore much the same expression Ajatar had, one of total reverence and devotion.

They knew what he was, although that any hope of anonymity in the face of his lifting of their sight was indeed quite slim.

"I have only seen the power of Spirit expressed in momentary flares, brief sparks that are over before they even began." Their leader and grandmaster was saying. "You fanned it into a flame within us all and now I can no longer look at the world in the same way."

There was a general murmur of agreement amongst the warriors gathered around them and even the mean spirited Ansu looked to be in complete agreement.

Ajatar stepped forward and looked him squarely in the face.

"You are he who Ba'al told me to follow when he was gone." She said. "The deliverer, come at last." Slowly she knelt, going down onto one knee before him in submission. "The Scion of Balance."

One by one the other Serioli bent their knees to him, bowing before him in acknowledgement of their allegiance and loyalty to him. Kain glanced around them all. He had matured considerably since the days when he had demanded the obedience and servitude of the multitudes but he was forced to admit that it did feel very good to have others bow to him.

"And so you finally admit it?" He asked the kneeling grandmaster.

"I am not a cretin and to ignore what I see before my very eyes." She replied without looking up. "Late or not, you have come and that is all that matters… I see that now." She rose then, but with her torso tilted in deep respect to him. "Lord Kain, I will follow you… as do those warriors assembled here in witness to this day."

The warriors hoisted their weapons in the air on a gesture from Ansu and with a mighty cry they declared;

"All Hail Lord Kain, Scion of Balance!"

Ajatar looked him directly in the face again, expectantly for his answer. Kain stared back without displaying any emotion for a moment,

He had never intended NOT to take the Serioli with him as he knew how to ensure the survival of the Ancients now, but it was gratifying indeed to have them express their support to him of their own free will rather than having him force them.

He turned then to look towards the Pillars with a certain longing, observing their perfection one last time. Would he see them restored to this pure state in the time from which he came? Perhaps time was ripe to see if they might.

"To the north west, in the mountains beyond of the Lake of the Dead you will find a cave." He told her. "Take all the supplies you can carry with you to that cave and wait for me there."

"Where are you going?" She asked, watching him make his way towards the back end of the Pillar's and the edge of the clearing in the forest.

"To talk with my enemy." Kain replied sardonically.


	31. Talk with my enemy

The path for Kain was clear now. He would take the Serioli forward with him to the time where he had once ruled Nosgoth and with them build a new empire to stand against this monstrosity and his machinations, reviving the Pillar's so that they might be used to impale and hold him where they may forever more.

But first…

The lower chamber beneath the Pillar's, had been built as far as Kain knew, to observe the Pillar's which stabbed down for infinity as much into the earth itself as they did into the sky. Perhaps this complex had served another purpose at one time but it had been abandoned for quite a few centuries, perhaps from the time of the Pillar's construction.

The Door to this place yielded to the Reaver and Kain made his way to that central place, where the pillars continues down through a stone platform and into an underground lake. The water around the stone circle was dark and foreboding, silent and still.

All around him were the murals of the Ancient Vampires, depicting their war with the Hylden, their cursing and fall from grace and hope that would be given to them by the bearer of the Reaver blade.

Upon the floor of this chamber were the elemental symbols, arranged just so that the Pillar's these elements were aligned to were made obvious. Fire connected Nature and conflict, Water with States and Death, Earth with Time and Energy and Air with Mind and Dimension. In the centre of it all, perhaps even representing the Balance Pillar was the symbol for Spirit.

Kain's head suddenly jerked up from his causal inspection of the artwork, his inner instinct for danger suddenly screaming at him. The Reaver was in his hands a fraction of a second later as he turned and swung down.

As the blade made contact with the tentacle lashing out towards him, Raziel screamed from within and the blade sliced down through the disgusting green flesh, the stolen energy of souls bursting forth.

"Do I sense desperation in you, old parasite?" Kain asked dryly as the tentacle withdrew sharply back into the water, without so much a ripple.

From the other side, another two tentacles sprung up from the water and shot towards him like a coiled snake. Kain met these attacks as well, dodging one lunge before up cutting the second. As that limb withdrew, Kain swung back at the first severing it completely.

The limb thrashed for a moment on the stone at his feet before it disintegrated, unable to hold itself together after being freed from the main body.

"Provoked by you, Kain?" A voice asked; that same voice of his enemy that Kain knew all too well. "Unlikely."

Edging his way close to the water, Kain glanced down wearily into the depths. Coiled around the pillar's was something, dark sinister; sitting there waiting for the opportunity to strike once more.

There were pin pricks of blue light down there, emitted from the False God's eyes that moved out on numerous tentacles in the darkness.

"You have been a thorn in my side, but no more than that. In the end you are inconsequential."

Kain smiled then, an amused grin at the cowardly taunts of his enemy from the safety of the shadows.

"And yet here you are, straining against the Pillar's themselves to strike at me in this era." He remarked, kneeling down almost to mock the parasite with his unconcern for any attack that might be made against him.

He glare down at that dark shape in the water, stabbed directly through its mass and down deeper into the earth, paling the entity and holding it in this one place.

"And now I see that the Pillar's hold you back as much as they do the Hylden." He said out load, realising the full extent of the meaning behind what the Keeper had told him about 'true balance being disrupted'.

And if he carried on that thought to its logical conclusion, the implications left him speechless.

Slowly he stood up, eyes widening in utter amazement. A preconception he had held about himself had just been shattered for there could be no other explanation.

"And so the degradation of Nosgoth in eons to come was caused not by the corruption of the Pillars directly, but rather their lack of power to keep you from draining the life out of the land itself." He eventually said; voicing now what he knew had to be the truth.

Everything Ba'al had told him fitted into place with the words of the Keeper and so the inevitable conclusion was that it had never been Kain's fault for the state of the land after he made his decision to reject the sacrifice.

It had been the appetite of his enemy all along, sucking the land dry of its vibrant energies.

Centuries of guilt for his decision… and it had been this boneless parasite the entire time!

"Is that why you hate the vampires so much?" He asked in utter contempt and despite for this wretched thing. "Because my kind created these binding stones to lock you out from your banquet?"

The blue light beneath the water flickered on and off, a blinking motion.

"You have learned much, little vampire." The voice of his enemy said, with an ominously venomous undertone.

For one flaring instant Kain was consumed by a righteous anger that burned through him like a hundred suns, a hatred magnified by the thousands of years he had spent in emotional turmoil for something he had believed had been his fault. All that time wasted while his enemy had been laughing at him, revelling in his pain and anguish.

"Perhaps you should have learned to share." He ground out from beneath clenched teeth, his hand tightening so much on the hilt of the Reaver it was a wonder it did not snap.

"I am the nexus for life itself in this world." The False god declared and Kain looked around sharply, watching as a multitude of tentacles began to rise out of the water all around him. Eyes opened in their skin, all different sized but all still pulsing with that luminous blue glow.

"Without me Nosgoth would collapse into stagnant anarchy."

Then a tentacle, larger than all the others, rose up directly in front of him and curled around it, forming a circle. Within that circle, another eye formed; growing out of the flesh with a disgusting squelching noise. "I do not share my throne with anyone."

The eye glazed over with a protective inner eyelid as its hourglass pupil widened and contracted with each word spoken.

"Not even your travelling companion?" Kain asked without flinching.

The pupils of all the eyes watching him widened to near ovals, then contracted sharply to narrow sinister slits.

There was a low, dissatisfied rumbling noise coming deep from below; almost like the low growl an animal might make when it was annoyed.

Kain found the sound gratifying.

"Ahh yes the Keeper." There was an edge of that growl in the voice that replied. "So he is the one who has been enlightening you."

The tentacles lashed back and forth around him, until they settled against the walls and sprouted more eyes.

"Do you believe for one moment that he has your best interests at heart?" The gluttonous entity asked then, his pupils widening bit by bit.

"Do you honestly think that his agenda is any more benevolent than my own in this game?"

More tentacles began to slip out of the water over the side of the stone platform towards him. "He is simply old and bitter and undeserving. Much the same as you."

Those tentacles lashed out, trying to grab Kain's legs. A flip of his sword severed them before they came close.

Another larger limb whipped around at him from behind. Tilting his entire body around to get out of its lancing strike, Kain swung back again with the Reaver. The tentacle swerved away from the strike, sliding back into the safety of the water.

"Kain… Scion of Balance…the mere idea of you of all people being the messiah is laughable." The large eye pushed out a little and trembled, its pupil widening. There was a whooshing noise and a bolt of force shot forward from the iris, homing down upon the vampire.

"You who damned Nosgoth to eternal darkness, who slaughtered hundreds by your own hands and thousands more with your armies, now believe your destiny is to come to its rescue?"

Kain darted to one side by the projectile of force followed after, surging at him with malicious intent. Whenever it neared Kain faded into mist to allow it to pass through him.

"To be the gallant knight riding to the aid of the oppressed on a white and noble steed? It's nothing more than the uneducated illusion of an ignoramus."

Becoming solid a ways off, Kain was able to counter this blast of force with a projectile of its own, an energy bolt timed just so to counteract and cancel out the opposing force.

The air rippled and a shockwave pulsed out. Kain slid back about a foot before he steadied himself.

Turning, he looked the False God right in the eye.

"There is a human saying; 'Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.'" He said, raising the Reaver to point its tip directly at it. "Hypocrite. You have the gall to say I am unworthy of greatness?"

The eye began to shake as if preparing another blast of force. Kain pre-emptively struck, slashing the Reaver across its width into it. The eye swung back, leaking green blood, the others clinking rapidly as if in sympathetic pain.

"You who aspire to godhood, who have committed acts that even I would pale at?" Kain demanded. "The Vampires worshipped you devoutly and yet the moment they were taken off your menu, you abandoned them."

The eye glared back at him, the pupil narrowing to a slit and trembling in suppressed rage.

"You instigated massacre after massacre upon them just to keep your insidious Wheel turning."

There was a double surge from either side and Kain glanced around, seeing more large tentacles rise up and curve in around themselves. Within the space of a few moments, there were about four large eyes all glaring down at him, bright and blue and pulsing with energy ready to discharge at him.

More and more small tentacles were slipping up over the side of the platform, gripping it tight as if the False God intended to drag it down into the water.

The vampire readied himself, his blade held ready to strike at whatever would come to attack him first.

"Not just for that, Kain." The False God started, his voice adopting a mocking tone as his pupils widened and contracted. "But to ensure that no threat could ever rise from their ranks to endanger that Wheel."

Kain froze almost in place, his mouth agape.

"That's right vampire, I had Moebius and the multitude of my other servants exterminate your race in an attempt to ensure you would never exist."

The central eye leaned in closer.

"If anyone is to blame for the fate that befalls your wretched kind, it is you."

Kain stood there, his entire body wracked again with anger and hatred. He was breathing hard in an attempt to blind himself with rage but it wasn't working, all he was beginning to see was red.

With a scream of animal savagery he leapt at the eye in front of him swinging his sword. Dozens of tentacles attempted to bare his way but he slashed at them all in a berserker style fashion, moving faster than the eye could see, fuelled by his anger.

One tentacle grabbed him around the leg and tried to drag him down. Screaming out a battle cry that began to grow high pitched; he ripped into it with the sword.

The eyes around him widened and then spat forth their discharges of energy projectiles, sending all of them towards the vampire all at once.

"Your interference has been momentary!" The parasite declared, watching as Kain dodged the projectiles in mist form before coming to the attack again.

Dozens more tentacles lashing out up from the water to slam down on the platform towards Kain.

"Your fate has almost played out!"

Snarling, Kain back flipped over the surging limbs and came at the eyes themselves. The Reaver swung back and forth and Raziel cried out from within each time the sword struck, slicing through the flesh of this disgusting creature to spill its green bile like blood.

Each eye retreated back into the tentacle it was formed from each time it was hit and once enough of those eyes had been damaged, the tentacle would then slide back under the water.

"Have you forgotten how easily I can make you bleed?" Kain demanded, dragging the Reaver like a saw across the largest eyes, cutting savagely through the tissues, ripping and tearing until he cleaved free across its width slicing the entire eyeball in half.

The Parasite gave a shriek and with a sharp jerk his entire being withdrew into the water, splashing wildly as it went and trailing green blood. The tentacles withdrew completely, leaving the chamber free of their loathsome presence.

Kain took a few deep breaths and stood up straight, the Reaver dripping the slowly disintegrating gore of the flesh it had cut through.

"You think you can defeat me Kain?" The voice of his enemy asked venomously from that distance. "It is not possible. I exist in places you can not find."

The vampire flicked the sword to free it of the remains of the disgusting slime and sheathed it across his back.

"I've only begun to seek you out." He replied, now believing that he had spent quite enough time in the presence of this loathsome entity. He pointed one talon down at the water. "Go hide and be afraid."

With a sharp turn he began walking toward the exit to the chamber, turning his back on this creature.

"For I shall rip you up from this world before I am finished and your so called Wheel of Destiny will shatter upon my sword!"

-


	32. Seige of the Chronoplast

Once again Kain journeyed north to that near impossible to find cave, nestled in he frozen reaches of the spine of Nosgoth. He did not press himself as he had on his journey to the pillars. He wanted to arrive there relatively fresh and he needed the extra time to plan.

The Serioli Ancients were not that large in number but they could very well be the only Ancients beside Janos Audron to survive. The fact that he had found these hardened survivors who had rejected the dogma of the Wheel of Fate had always rung true in his mind, as if it was meant to be.

Now certain that finally he was on the right path Kain was more than prepared to let destiny take over to propel him forward.

In this era, the hidden spot that marked the entrance to the fabled 'Oracle's Cave' was nearly completely obscured from sight from the air and it was only after he sighted one of the Serioli out on watch that he finally managed to find it.

His bats condensed back into one in mid air and he dropped down into the thick snow of the mountain passes.

Outside the barley visible cave entrance was winged Ancient was standing watch. It was the same Kralek who had met him with hostility before at the Pillars. This time upon sighting Kain, his response was a lot more respectful.

He paled slightly but then dropped down onto one knee, even in the thick snow.

"Lord Kain, we are all here as you ordered,." He announced as Kain wadded forward, plodding is way up to the barely visible path to the cave mouth.

"All of you?" Kain asked as he came near. "Every last one?"

Kralek nodded with his head kept down.

"Yes." He said. "The rest are inside. The grandmaster sent the fledglings of Audron into hiding in the east."

Kain managed a short smile. The fledglings would carry on the Serioli traditions and pass it on to the humans, persevering the ancient forging techniques and securing the Order's place as the legendary weapon forgers of Nosgoth.

"Good. Where is Ajatar?" He asked.

Kralek looked back over his shoulder towards the cave.

"The grandmaster is preparing to set up a defensive barrier inside" He said. Kain chuckled and stepped past him.

"She needn't bother; we won't be staying here that long." He muttered leaving the puzzled seeming youth behind.

The caves were a natural fort and they seemed to appeal to the Serioli quite a bit, perhaps reminding them of their stronghold. The labyrinth Moebius would one day use as his home and tourist site for gullible visitors was little more than a set of empty hollow spaces in this day and age.

If Kain's theory was right, it would be here that the time streamer would discover the Chronoplast and then reverse engineer its design to create his own cruder time streaming devices. Of course that did leave the question of who actually built the original device in the first place up in the air. Kain had no time to dwell on that pursuit, although he might like to find out when this was all over.

For the moment he had other priorities.

Ajatar he found overseeing the supplies that they had stored in the central cave where in times to come Moebius would have his museum of oddities from various eras. She was with her escort in the form of the large warrior, Ansu.

Almost as if sensing him, she turned to observe him entering the chamber. There was a serious expression on her face as if she was finally doing something serious that might make a difference after so long of fighting fruitless battles.

"Lord Kain." She greeted him formally.

The vampire looked around at the stacks of supplies that they had assembled. Weapons would be useful certainly but Kain was more pleased with the crates of bottled blood they had taken with them. They would need to ration this supply quite strictly until the human population in the future recovered enough to permit a decent crop.

"Do you have all your supplies ready?" He asked, turning to look at them. The grandmaster nodded.

"Yes. I'm assuming we are moving again?" Her voice was shrewd. Being a military commander and an intent realist she would know that it would not be feasible to live in these caves forever.

"Yes but not too far." He motioned for them to follow him. Ajatar and her warrior obeyed, closely following him down through the caverns.

Kain knew his way of course and waited with a great deal of anticipation for their reaction as to what they might see.

As they past from caves into stone chambers of silent clockwork, Ajatar's face creased into a puzzled frown. The architecture was like none she had seen before.

"My Lord Kain, what is this place?" Ansu asked for her, his own features contorted with surprise and curiosity.

Kain chuckled to himself. They had reached the large door that marked the Chronoplast's entrance.

"Our way forward." He remarked and threw the doors open advancing inside the central apex of the ancient device. With some curiosity, he noted that the 'figure eight' symbol for eternity was not there on the floor where it had been before.

Ajatar stared around her in utter amazement, her mouth hung open to show her fangs. Her wings dropped down either side of herself.

"By the elements what is this?" Her voice echoed. Ansu, being less intimidated by the strangeness, advanced first down the stairs to the central point after Kain.

"A device of ancient construction." The vampire told them, brushing centuries of dust off of the first set of controls. "It will deliver what remains of our people to a time where they will be safe from our enemies."

He needed no setting for this machine to use it. He already knew how to manipulate its controls to set it to the time from which he came. He decided that he needed to set it relatively close to when he first left, perhaps a week or so after in order to avoid crossing either himself or a vengeful Raziel.

Ajatar blinked and looked over at him incredulously.

"A… a time?" She repeated questioningly.

"For lack of a less crude and common place phrase, you may call it a time machine." He replied. Even the less impressed Ansu spluttered at that. The Serioli as an order must have faced countless foes in battle but this for them was some new, beyond their understanding and experience.

"Incredible… inconceivable." He was saying in between awed sighs as he behind the Chronoplast's layers and the large dials arranged around the outside.

"Now I understand." Ajatar began, descending the stairs. "Now I truly do understand why you didn't intervene in the fall of the Citadel." Kain turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "You're from the future… you knew it was going to fall." Neither her tone of voice nor the expression on her face was accusatory but rather her eyes where willed with a sad but calm acceptance.

"Was it truly unavoidable?" She asked.

Kain nodded once and once only.

With that rely she let out one last sigh of regret and with that single sigh all the bitterness that remained seemed to flow out of her being.

"You truly mean for us to cross the boundary of time itself?" Ansu asked, still sounding skeptical.

Kain could understand the scepticism. What he proposed would sound almost insane to them, but he needed their loyalty and their cooperation and in this there was no room for scepticism.

"You did say that you would follow me." He reminded them both with a feigned glare of disapproval. "Do you wish to go back on your word now?"

The grandmaster of the Serioli shook her head.

"No. As fantastically impossible as this all sounds, yours is the only solution which might offer us any hope of survival." She said but with a certain amount of optimism. "If the future is the only place where we might be safe… then it is the future that we must…"

Before she could finish, the air was suddenly alike with thick dust, pulled it seemed from the surrounding surfaces, all of it swirling up high into the air like a twister before condensing together to form solid shapes in the air.

Ansu's hand went for the hilt of his massive axe and Kain responded in much the same way, swinging the Reaver around to hold it battle ready.

-

**_"It would seem my enemy was not about to let me get away with what I planed without a fight. The Homunculi were here." _**

-

Over twenty centurions formed in mid air, dropping down into organised battle rows. Further behind them were officers, about six of them by the number of plumed helmets that Kain was able to count.

"These things pursue us even here?" Ajatar demanded in a snarl, winging backwards out of reach of their swords while drawing her own short blades.

The homunculi wasted no words and attacked, their numbers advancing step by step with their swords swinging in unison.

Kain parried a swipe before lashing out with his foot. The kick knocked his enemy back into the other dolls behind it and in this moment, Kain brought the Reaver around in a single swipe that sliced their heads clean off. Their liquid interior's burst forth from the gaping holes as they then collapses into terracotta pieces.

Beside him, Ansu fought with almost berserker like savagery, his double blades axe carving huge holes in whatever it connected with.

Ansu, experienced from fighting these creatures already in Vorador's forge, used that past knowledge to good use, learning how to anticipate their attacks and dodge around them.

Kain however was keeping his attention fixed on the Officer's behind the main force, which were holding their hands out in front of themselves as they prepared to fire the energy projectiles he had come to expect from them.

When the finally seemed on the verge of doing so, Kain slammed his way through the ranks of the centurions and unleashed a focused burst of telekinetic force through his gauntlet directly at them.

The officers were knocked back, toppling over to crash into the floor and the energy they were charging detonated between hands blowing off their arms in a tremendous explosion of force.

Two more officers on the higher steps which had escaped the dismemberment, raised their hands to try again. Before they could, the sword like tip of a spear lanced through their bodies from behind, their disgusting insides pouring out down the steps. A small group of Serioli warriors had come in though the entrance and seeing the plight of their leaders, had attacked their besiegers.

The added assistance quickly was able to turn the tide and quell the homunculi which began fighting far more defensively.

"Lord Kain!" One of the warriors shouted from the entrance to the chamber. "We are besieged!"

-

**_"And now I saw the seriousness of this attack. There was an army of these soulless marionettes pouring into the caves. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of them. The Serioli were vastly outnumbered. With nowhere to run to they would be slaughtered… unless I hurried."_**

-

With Ansu and a small collection of soldiers able to deal with the homunculi within the central chamber, Kain received the quick report that these creatures had begun manifesting through the entire cave complex. More and more of them were turning up, hundreds within the space of a few minutes.

Kain growled. This was not the way this was supposed to happen.

"Withdraw everyone we have and all the supplies into this chamber." He said making the only hasty decision he could. "Barricade the door and hold them off." The vampire turned to Ajatar who was coming up the stairs, her twin blades dripping with what counted for homunculi blood. "I need time to work the controls." He added, gesturing around at the machinery.

Ajatar followed his gaze, seeing his intent.

Kain was no fool. He was not going to fight an army of these creatures with such a vastly inferior force to back him up. The only recourse he had was to flee and now that they were trapped down here, cut off from any other hope of escape, the Chronoplast's time streaming ability was their only option.

"Can you get this device working in time?" Ajatar asked even as Kain made for the first set of dials.

"I do not know." He admitted, grabbing the first and pulling it to the side. It grated loudly. Moebius had kept it in relative good condition but since in this era he had yet to find it, its condition was that of an abandoned relic. "It is a complex mechanism…"

The Serioli carried out his orders, herding their number into the chamber which quickly became quite crowded. With such numbers they were quickly able to overwhelm the homunculi which had formed here and then began to shift what supplies they could grab through the door.

"As soon as I tell you to go through its vortex I am not inviting you or any of your warriors to an extended debate about it. When I say jump you jump. When I say go you GO understand?" Kain asked Ajatar, without so much as glancing up from his work.

The gears and old cogs of the machine were so rusted that it was taking all of his strength to turn them.

Ajatar nodded and went down to oversee the barricading of the door. The lat of the crates with the blood bottles came through, with the marching sound of footsteps echoing after it.

Before the Homunculi outside could enter the chamber, the Serioli slammed the door shut and piled a few of the empty crates they had against it.

It was a superficial barrier that would be easily overcome with a simple battering ram but under the circumstances it would just have to do.

Frantically now, Kain set the controls watching the chamber only sluggishly respond to his commands. The armillary above, suspended from the ceiling was only just beginning to churn with a protesting groan of metal against metal.

The energy charge up was slow, far slower than it had been since he had ever used it before.

The door gave a sudden lurch forward accompanied b a loud hollow booming sound that left the entire chamber shaking in the aftermath. The Serioli warriors rushed to press themselves up against it, even as the door lurched again, struck from the outside by some heavy object.

-

**_"They were breaking through. I had to hurry."_**

-


	33. Raziel Divus

Throwing the last dial into position, Kain set the Chronoplast device to open a porthole in time to leap over five thousand years, to the time when his empire was old and decadent and he and Raziel had first begun their strange odyssey through causality. He did not believe that he had time to set the machine to any specific location and had to settle for emerging in the same place, delivering them into the same room only eons in the future.

The armillary began to churn above their heads, spinning as it gathered energy. As it spun, it shot offs sparks to show its state of disrepair. The Serioli were straining to keep the door to the room closed but they were fighting a loosing battle, the strain too much as the door began to edge inexorably open.

Dozens of scrabbling terracotta arms reached through the widening gap, grasping for anything they could. One of them tried to stab at Ansu's head with a short sword but the warrior struck the arm away and then cut it across the middle with his axe, the severed limb dropping to the ground and smashing open like pottery.

Again came the booming clash of what could only be a battering ram, ring through the chamber and the door began to push open and the Serioli could not stop it.

Kain leapt to the attack, charging into the midst of the homunculi as they tried to come through. The Reaver screamed its complimentary outrage, cutting through into the soulless creatures in their droves, sending them back with its serpentine edge.

Forced back the Homunculi retreated a few feet around their crude stone battering ram, giving the Serioli enough time to bar the door again.

Despite its protests, the Chronoplast was beginning to reach its zenith. The armillary was spinning faster and faster, its energy culminating at its peek.

Even preoccupied as they were, the Serioli looked up to watch the deice glow with its power before it unleashed it as the heretofore unnoticed porthole at the back of the chamber.

The pulsing energy the porthole received pushed out like a rising wave and then contracted, caving in one itself with a groaning noise as a hole was opened through the fabric of time itself.

The Serioli as one simply stared in wide eyed amazement at the spectacle, even as the homunculi outside resumed their attack, the door creaking open again with a loud boom.

"GO!" Kain shouted at them, turning again to face the advancing enemy. "Go now!!"

The crates that they had piled up around the door were cracking and giving away, ready to burst at any moment.

Ajatar recovered first, screaming orders to her warriors to carry whatever provisions they could and run through the porthole. As loyal as they were, the Serioli were unwilling at first to advance through that vortex. It was only when Ansu turned on them, grim faced and with his axe in hand that they went. An advantage party made their way up the stairs before disappearing into the swirling energies.

Other picked up their supplies, or as much as they could conveniently carry, and followed in intense apprehension.

Before they were finished however, the door gave a final boom and it swung open, slamming against the wall. The homunculi charged in one huge mass of soldiers, swords drawn ready for the kill.

Kain swung and swung, forcing them to divert their attention to him as the Serioli were forced to abandon the lion share of their resources and flee. Faced with the unknown and certain death, the survivors that they were, they chose the unknown. One by one they disappeared through the vortex.

Ajatar herself stood on the precipice for just a moment, looking back at him with a worried anticipation of disaster to come in her eyes before she too was forced to run through the gateway.

With her leave, the Serioli was now beyond harms reach.

Kain began to back track, fighting the homunculi that surged at him, each backward step leading him towards the porthole and to safety.

They came at him in droves, unrelenting and unwilling to let him escape.

Facing a never ending swarm of these creatures Kain hacked and chopped at them ceaselessly, fading into mist form nearly constantly to avoid their swords.

Reaching the top of the chamber and the edge of the porthole seemed to take hours and when he finally reached it he was sweating hard and straining with each swing.

Several of them attacked from both sides, some slashing at him down his mid section. One even managed to jab its sword in quite deep.

A telekinetic burst sent them flying from him but they had done their work, injuring him quite badly. Wrenching the blade that was stuck in his side out, he turned to face the porthole.

The moment he prepared to jump through, absurdly, something else came through instead; emerging from the vortex of time to block his path to safety.

He halted, staring in utter disbelief at the feminine figure before him.

**_"And there she was, emerging to stand before me. Even in the chaos of the moment she was there, her face filled with a deep regret and sadness. The Seer, journeying through time itself to behold me in this calamitous moment."_**

-

The Hylden woman looked at him sadly and a look of intense sorrow past her thin face, her hair cast above the sides of her ridged head by the energy flow of the time vortex behind her.

How could she have done this, followed him here?

"I'm sorry Kain." She said in her thick accent, her shoulders slumbered. "It was a choice between the well being of my people or your own."

Even before she had finished erecting the barrier of force in front of the porthole, Kain had realised that she had betrayed him. He launched to the attack, but by the time the Reaver connected with the shield it was completed and his way out had been barred.

The Seer watched him slash at the barrier between them with dull eyes before she turned and re-entered the gate, vanishing from sight.

The vampire screamed in frustration, as much at himself as at his betrayer. He should have known something like this would happen. He had suspected her of treachery before but never to this extent. He should have never simply trusted her word when she agreed to help him.

But so confident had he been of being on the right path to his destiny after so long, he had been blind to it.

Trapped now, Kain slowly turned to face the homunculi. They filled the chamber completely and they had him completely surrounded. He was injured, cut off from allies and assistance. He had no way forward and no way back.

Frowning, the expression barely expressing the built up rage in his soul, he held the Reaver at face level; ready to cleve the first one to move at him in two.

That dreadful moment of silence, broken only by the churning of the vortex and the hum of the barrier before it, seemed to endure for a long time.

Then his enemies backed off, each of them retracing their steps away from him. As one these puppets backed off until they were crowded around the periphery of the chamber, standing still and to complete attention.

From the cleared space in the centre of the Chronoplast, a bright light began to glow; a light that widened out and spread forming the outline of some physical shape. Wings emerged from the light, two streaks of black against the light. The glow faded and those wings spread out wide, revealing their owner who drifted slowly down to the floor.

"Greetings to you Kain, the blackest nefastus."

The Scion of Balance stared, unable to accept that his senses were telling him. The face before him was unmistakable, those features branded into his mind for eternity. Standing before him was a winged Vampire Ancient, the spitting image of the mural he had seen in that now derelict temple back in the citadel.

Almost like a parody, the features were those he knew so well were given the yellow eyes and blue pigmentation of the ancients.

-

**_"No…."_**

-

"This… it can not be." He breathed, unable to take in what he was seeing.

But that voice… it was impossible to deny.

Raziel stood there, in this new form as if he had never gone anywhere. Like that mural, he wore golden armour down his right arm where upon his wrist was a strange device with three ornamental bird's heads jutting out in separate directions.

He was naked to the waste down otherwise, straps of similar armour across his skins and calves. White clothe embroidered with silver and jade decorations hung down from his belt on either side of his waist.

"I finally get to meet you for the first time." This impossible incarnation of his first born son said in mock greeting. "Or is the last?" He gestured around him to the chronoplast chamber. "Time travel does upset a linear narrative so. But I am here to change all that."

Kain was slowly shaking his head, actually letting the Reaver drop down in his stunned amazement.

"…Raziel?" He asked in hushed whisper. The winged incarnation flapped its wings a few times.

"I am sancrasanctus - highest of holy." He corrected in tones of the greatest arrogance that made even Kain uncomfortable. "Servant of the one true God of fate and king of Fanum-Divus, castle city of the demi-gods. I am Raziel-Divus!"

Kain's eyes flicked to the forehead of this Raziel, seeing with distaste the same mark that had adhered Moebius' head…the mark of entity, the symbol he knew now to be upon the servants of his enemy.

"Then these…" He glanced off to one side as the hundreds of spectator homunculi.

"Are little more than pawns." Raziel-Divus finished and clicked his talons. The army around them cracked like broken pottery in that one instant and then collapsed back into the dust from whence they had come.

The dust cascaded down over the Chronoplast's levels like a waterfall of gold, pooling at the bottom layer.

"We are like the homunculi in so many ways." He commented, brushing aside the fragments on the ground with his foot. "The Wheel turns, dragging us from the dust from which he came and with its fulfilment the wheel returns us whence we came." He smiled in a macabre fashion. "Ashes to ashes as it were."

Kain stared still, slowly shaking his head. His mind was fraught with confusion and dismay.

Within the blade he held, the spirit of the Raziel he knew let out a soft animalistic growl. The very sword seemed to shiver in his grip as if enraged.

"I can sense the question you wish to ask." Raziel-Divus began. "How can I even exist?"

Kain drew in a soft breath

"You're not Raziel." He began still trying to deny it. The winged figure snorted derisively at this.

"I am more 'Raziel' than the pathetic wraith I'm destined to become will ever be." He spat in deepest contempt.

And it was then that Kain fitted the pieces together. What Ajatar had told him and the images of the murals back in the Citadel, his own experiences dealing with the Raziel that he knew all drew into a bleak picture of what could only be the dreadful reality.

"If this is who you were originally…" He began, still unbelieving somewhere deep in his soul. "Raziel, his first incarnation… then perhaps I did not know him as well as I thought I did."

It was a lowering thought and yet another of his preconceptions had been dealt a fatal blow. Was nothing in his world fixed?

"Apparently not." Raziel-Divus replied, still scowling deeply. He paced back and Kain began to make his way down the stairs, Reaver still at the ready. "Can you imagine what torture that knowledge is?" His adversary asked. "To know that one is destined immutably to first lower oneself to being human…"

He said the word 'human' with as much disgust as one might say the word 'cockroach'.

"Then your servant for a millennium?" He still had his back to the vampire and for a moment, Kain entertained the idea to rush him and end it quickly. In the end however he could not do it.

"After that; a disgusting, hideous wraith and then the final insult… part of you!" Raziel-Divus turned around to face him, feature set into a deep frown.

"I no more anticipate with delight the fate of being entwined around your being than I am thrilled about captivity in the Reaver blade." He declared.

A flash of memory crossed Kain's mind. He recalled that moment where he had accidentally impaled Raziel with the sword and in sacrificing himself, Raziel had let his wraith blade pass into his being; dispersing into him to purify his sight and heal the damage done so long ago by Nupraptor's poisonous telepathic cancer.

Kain had never actually thought about it like that before but Raziel-Divus was right… the wraith blade had indeed been Raziel's own future self bonded with him. If it had dispersed into him, than Raziel… _his Raziel_… was not stuck repeating his destiny forever.

He had escaped the Reaver's curse by bonding with Kain himself. Involuntarily Kain glanced down at his chest where the hand of his son had touched him.

Suddenly he felt very vulnerable.

"A loyal servant and prophet of God I may be…" Raziel-Divus was carrying on. "But to leave my fate there, joined with you like some defective twin is something I can not abide."

His talons he held out wide like menacing claws. The device upon his wrist gave a loud click and three blades sprouted from the beaks of the three birds, forming a triangle of steel.

"I will correct it… here and now."

Kain's eyes trailed up towards him.

"And so this is the sad task you have set yourself to in the name of your False God?" He asked sadly. The irony was so perfect here. "I have seen your master, made him bleed and cry out in pain." He pointed a talon at Raziel-Divus. "When you see him for yourself, as he truly is, you will turn against him too."

"He told me you would say that." The winged incarnation said, holding his right arm out in front of himself, the blades angled out to either side. "I am not prepared to entertain your lies. Your corruption is the only reason I will turn against him and he has pre-emptively forgiven me for it… provided I do one thing for him."

He charged, leaping up into the air. His movements were so fast that he blurred. Kain was almost not able to keep up with him, dodging back to avoid a swipe with the triad of blades.

"Rid him of the nuisance that is the Scion of Balance!" Raziel-Divus landed a kick across Kain's stomach, hitting the wound the homunculi had inflicted upon him. The pain stabbed through the vampire's body and he stumbled back against the side of side of the wall.

"Methinks this will be no great task."


	34. End of Prophecy

The two opponents clashed, sparks flying off in all directions as blades were deflected. They parried and lurched at one another, trying to get through the others defences.

The Reaver screamed in a peculiar short of enhanced outrage that something it would consider an imposter each time Kain swung.

-

**"And so I faced Raziel once again in combat within this chamber; the original Raziel, an incarnation before even his life as a Sarafan inquisitor. Once again he would prove to be a formidable foe."**

-

Raziel-Divus was just as skilled as Kain remembered his Raziel had been, his agility, speed, strength and stamina seemed to match completely. Additionally however, this opponent seemed to be gifted with an uncanny ability to predict his movements. Every time Kain lunged forward with his sword, the winged fighter would dance out of the way and then strike back at him with his own triad of curved blades.

Kain tried to catch him by angling his sword down in a slashing motion across his calves but Raziel-Divus leapt up into the air with one single sweeping of his wings, pirouetting in mid air before his kick connected with Kain's chin.

Kain staggered back, clutching at the gash on his neck that his opponent's talons had left. It was not deep but it was enough of an injury to make matters intensely worse. Kain was already burdened by the wound the homunculi had given him and through lack of blood and sustenance his strength was slowing beginning to fade.

As if sensing this, Raziel-Divus pressed his attack, diving in and swinging his right arm back and forth, slashing at Kain repeatedly. The way he moved was almost a dance, taking his bizarre weapon to fullest effect with each movement. Even Kain's own agility was not enough to keep up with that kind of speed and retreated, fading into mist form to gain some breathing room.

At such a disadvantage he was going to have to moderate his tactics. A long drawn out tight was inadvisable with his injury and fading strength and yet at the same time close range combat was lethal with that peculiar weapon Raziel-Divus was armed with.

His opponent did not give him the time to consider any other alternatives, charging in close himself. Meeting his charge head on, Kain swung the Reaver around with full force. He put all the strength he could muster into that lunge. The Reaver spun around, a whirling blade of death.

Being no fool, Raziel-Divus backed off several steps ducking and dodging as Kain when on the offensive. He didn't let up for a moment, forcing his opponent back with each swing of his blade.

Raziel-Divus backed up until he was up against the side of a wall and that was when Kain lunged, jabbing the Reaver forward. A single moment before it could run him trough, the winged adversary translocated away. His entire form vanished in a flash of light and Kain ended up ramming his sword into the stone instead.

Kain swung about to look up, seeing his opponent reappear on a second level of the chamber, his feathers behind him ruffled but he calmed himself before facing the vampire once more.

Now at a distance Kain reached his free hand back before throwing it forward, unleashing several energy bolts directly at his opponent.

Surprisingly Raziel-Divus did not try to dodge but rather he held his ground. The device on his wrist held up before him protectively.

The orb in the centre of the wrist band flared brightly the bird like appendages that formed a triangle across it began to lengthen. The blades emerging with a loud steely hiss from the ornate beaks, making the triangle they formed longer. In the next instant, there was a flash of blue as between these blades, a curved shield of light formed. It was like on oval of sparking energy, travelling around in a tight circuit.

The energy projectiles struck, and then were neutralised, their force being absorbed into the shield itself. The bolts of force crackled across the glowing surface of the shield for a brief moment before fading away.

"I almost didn't believe the Hylden female when she told us you would pursue this course of action, so easily traceable and prone to ambush." He declared, lowering his arm and as he did so the shield faded and the blades returned to their normal size.

Kain scowled up at him, breathing hard from his exertions.

"Has she been your agent from the beginning?" He demanded in bitter resentment. Raziel-Divus spread his arms uncommitted, shrugging the matter off.

"We have an arrangement." He said somewhat vaguely, clearly thinking the matter unimportant. "But that is of no concern to yours, Kain."

He closed his fist tightly and sparks of energy began to travel down his arm and into the device strapped to his wrist, causing the orb in the centre to glow brightly.

"What is of more immediate concern to you is how you will cope with defeat… and death!"

With a yell Kain leapt at him, swinging the Reaver up over his head as he prepared to bring it down upon his enemy.

His blow, with his strength put behind it, would not be stopped and if Raziel-Divus did not move then he could be cut in half.

Once more the shield went up with a flash of light and connected with the Reaver as it arched down.

-

**"I had seen many things over the course of my long life, but never before had I witnessed a shield capable of withstanding the Reaver. His barrier remained impervious to its strikes."**

_-_

The shield did not flinch from the strikes, discharging its energy left and right as it defended its wearer from the blows. From behind his wall of safety Raziel-Divus grinned sadistically.

Suddenly he lashed out, grabbing Kain by the throat with his talons. Kain moved to swipe at his arm with his sword but before he could, his adversary displayed his lightning fast reflexes and slammed Kain against the side of the wall twice before throwing him halfway across the room to slam again into the far side of the chamber. The wall cracked on impact and he collapsed to the floor in a shower of brick dust.

His whole body ached as he tried to stand. Unsteadily he hoisted himself back up, now painfully aware that not only was his foe faster than him but he was stronger than him too.

Glancing up, he saw the oncoming attack just in time to dodge to one side; leaping out of the way as a blast of concentrated force smashed into the spot where he had just been.

Raziel-Divus unleashed a constant barrage of force projectiles at him, forcing Kain to run.

The battle had been turned around completely and Kain was left completely on the run, dodging with all his agility as his enemy continues projectiles the bubbles of compressed force at him. The air seemed to ripple like the surface of disturbed water as they past perilously close to him.

And then one of them struck him on the leg and he stumbled. Stunned for that one instant, he was left open to attack and a dozen more stunning blasts struck him all over his body. The sheer impact of them tore the Reaver from his hand and the blade soared off to clatter across the ground and he was thrown back across the floor until he slid to a stop by the porthole leading to the future.

His muscles would not comply as he tried to stand back up.

Before he could, Raziel-Divus flew over and stamped down, pinning him to the floor, slamming his face against the hard stone.

His enemy held up a hand over him, talons spread wide and with a single command set his body burning with magical fire.

Kain screamed out load in unashamed pain as the blue flames spread over his body, the tongues of fire not touching their controller but burning him as if he were dropped into boiling pitch.

-

**"My body burned, the fire consuming me utterly. This pain was unlikely any I had ever endured before. There was no patch of skin that was not crying out in agony." **

-

His hair burned and his skin began to turn black, his clothes catching alight and his inside boiled. He writhed there, trying to escape but Raziel-Divus kept him pinned beneath the flames letting him suffer. When he finally relented and let the fire go out, Kain was a smouldering husk of his former self. He gasped, closing his eyes and crying out feeling his skin smoke.

Raziel-Divus used his foot to turn him over, letting the defeated Scion of Balance lie there staring up at the ceiling.

-

**"Broken and battered… defenceless." **

-

Raziel-Divus knelt down beside Kain and looked him over, as if he was seeking something. Then his eyes widened, apparently finding what he had been looking for. Slowly he shook his head.

"Am I damned to forever ensure my own death?" He asked out load, raising his other hand over Kain's chest. Unable to do anything to stop him, all Kain could do was watch as the palm of his enemy began to glow softly, pulsing white.

He gasped out load, feeling some deep part of himself wrench itself out of its proper place and begin to float to the surface. His vision began to blur, he could not make out the world around him. The chamber seemed to be swimming.

-

**"I could feel it, a surge within my very being… my soul, emerging from the vessel it had always lived in."**

**-**

Perhaps it was his impaired sight but Kain could have sworn he could see a luminous form begin to emerge from his chest, unfixed and constantly changing shape. It seemed to be glowing a faint yellow colour as it hovered just above him. Entwined with this glowing wisp however was something else; something foreign, something with far more of a distinct frame to it.

-

**"Wrapped around my soul, there was another form…indistinct but definitely there. As I watched it in macabre fascination I saw the wonder and the horror of it all in once glance. Wrapped around my soul was Raziel… the Raziel that I had always known, his soul clinging to mine like a frightened child."**

-

And so he saw the proof of what his enemy had told him that his son had indeed survived within his own self.

Raziel-Divus looked at this display with the deepest contempt and reached out towards the entwined souls, his palm still glowing.

Kain watched, breathing hard as the soul taking shelter within his own was slowly pulled away from it. At first it did not want to go and clung there stubbornly but inch by inch Raziel-Divus drew the soul of his future self towards him.

Then with one final sharp tug, he separated the two of them. The two souls flew apart, propelled in opposite directions.

Kain's soul fled back into his body, painfully. The freed spirit hovered in the air for a moment, and looking at it Kain thought that he saw the familiar shape of the blue wraith floating there about him.

The transparent wraith turned to look back at him but as it did so, its form broke apart and began insubstantial like dust, floating apart. Like water down a drain, the particles that had made it began to flow towards the open porthole. The chloroplast accepted them and the twilight substance vanished into the vortex of time.

Raziel-Divus stood up, staring after them with a sad sort of look on his face.

"A fitting form of burial." He mused, half to himself. Then he looked down at the defeated Kain, his mind returned to the present business at hand. "And thus have I fulfilled my obligation to my God."

He knelt down and picked up the Reaver, holding it himself in one hand. The moment his hand touched the hilt, Kain felt the room warp in the temporal distortion that happened whenever Raziel overlapped himself and formed a paradox.

Raziel-Divus did not seem to notice it, holding the sword negligently as if he had seized some prize.

"The Reaver shall pass into the hands of Moebius the faithful. William the Just shall wield it at the destined time." He said, running a talon along the length of the blade.

"This is the end for all those who have the audacity to challenge what fate degrees For you Kain there is no more time left." Then he paused and looked around at the Chronoplast device, an apparent better thought coming to him.

"Or perhaps there is more time than you can handle?" He began. Turning he waved a free hand in front of the barrier the Seer had erected and it vanished, dissipating in a flash of elemental sparks.

Kain had a single moment to act. If he could he would he pick himself up and dive through that porthole to safety, but he had neither the strength nor the endurance left to even stand.

"I could kill you here and now… but I think my Lord might be better served by your eternal torture instead." Raziel-Divus went over to one of the control dials and yanked it to one side. This was a critical dial, the controlling mechanism that set the device to a specific era and locked it there. With it turned off, the porthole became unstable, turning from its usual white to an angry red.

"Just as you will one day cast me into an abyss, I shall do the same unto you." His enemy declared and the smile on his face was vicious as he lifted Kain by his head and dragged him towards the wound in time. "Drift forever beyond the rim of time never to come ashore."

With that, he tossed him in.

-

**_"Prophecy had failed me and destiny had stabbed me in the back once more. Thrown through the vortex of the Chronoplast, I was doomed to eternally fall through the void beyond time itself."_**

-

The irony of this situation, of Raziel casting **_him_** down, was perhaps the most bitter thought in Kain's mind as he vanished through that doorway.

-

**_"All was undone." _**


	35. Rebirth

The vampires were becoming scarcer and their raiding attacks for fresh meet less frequent. Up until about a few weeks ago, the norm had been to expect an attack on the Citadel at least three times every day. Now days would go by without even a sighting. Vampire hunter patrols were attacked only a few times in the later evening and only by lesser, fledgling vampires.

The change from the status quo, which had persisted for thousands of years, began to worry the governing council responsible for administrative affairs in the Human Citadel. While fewer vampire monsters outside their walls was certainly something to celebrate, it meant that something was happening out there that they did not understand.

Scouts had reported back the sighting of a new creature a while ago, a blue wraith like angel. Their scouts had sworn that they had witnessed this creature fighting and killing wandering Dumahim and rotting Melchiahim both. Some of the lower classes were even half convinced that the creature was some sort of angel sent from heaven to slay the vampires.

The council had taken no official position on this creature and sure enough, the creature had apparently vanished with no further sightings. Instead they began sending probing search parties further and further afield from the citadel. As time past they grew more confident and an expedition to the Sanctuary of the Clans was organised.

They knew of course that the vampires had abandoned the structure and it was only lightly defended by a few feral Dumahim but the retaking of the Pillars of Nosgoth and the humbling of the seat of Kain's empire would give hope to the masses.

They had to travel through the old Razielim territory to get there, which the hunters found to be completely abandoned. Not even a single fledgling vampire to stop them as they marched south and came upon the sanctuary.

The fluttering banners of the clans, even Raziel's, fluttered from the battlements as they approached.

The capture of this castle proceeded without any major mishap, the only barriers in their way being a few rusted portcullises. Once they were inside the inner courtyard, they were set upon by a few deranged and half starved Dumahim. They were incinerated by a blast of a flamethrower before they got near to the group.

The large stone door to the throne room proved to be more of an stubborn barrier to them, but those of them skilled in alchemy were able to rig up a gunpowder charge to the door.

The explosion shook the entire castle and sent the many carrion birds nestled around the place flapping and squawking up into the air.

As the hunters advanced inside, they became the first humans to set eyes on the Pillars of Nosgoth for generations. Kain had forbidden even human servants within the throne room and now humans had forced their way inside.

The State of the Pillars was terrible to behold. Stories told in the Citadel had spoken of them as pure, white marble and the foundation of the world itself. What was before them now was anything but, a set of faded grey slabs of rock piled around the basalt throne.

"Send word back to the Citadel." The expedition leader said, giving orders to a small squad of hunters. "Tell them that we have taken..." Before he could finish speaking, a loud groaning noise filled the air around them. Like the low moan of a dying animal. Slowly all the hunters turned to look at the Pillars, and at the throne from which that strange noise seemed to be coming from.

The throne turned from black to grey, cracks running over its surface before it broke apart collapsing into rubble that scattered across the stone base of the Pillars.

Then, one by one, the stumps of the Pillar's followed suit. Each one of the nine Pillars grew unstable and collapsed, their rubble collapsing collectively into a huge heap of stone.

The Pillar of Balance in the centre remained standing for a few moments longer and then it too burst apart.

And when it did, Nosgoth itself trembled like a wet dog. The earth heaved across the entire wording one instant of tremendous upheaval. The Pillars had long ago stopped maintaining the world's balance and had had only one function left, their preservation of the binding.

The last Guardian was gone and as corrupt as he had been for them they had drawn strength from him for this task. Now that he was gone they could no longer maintain even their own integrity.

An already weakened Binding had been dealt the final blow.

The sky overhead darkened, the clouds of smog put out by Kain's smokestacks growing near black.

Then their undersides began to take on a faint, greenish tinge. That colour grew brighter and brighter until the sky itself seemed to be on fire with an aurora of green light.

All over Nosgoth this light could be seen. Humans of the Citadel and the Vampires of the clans alike were witness to its radiance.

The light was nowhere brighter than in the east, where the long lost ruins of Avernus were hidden.

The fiery emerald aurora pulsed with energy over that place and when that energy had built up enough, it leapt out in the form of lightning; tearing massive holes in the ground around the half buried ruins of the city, holes that looked down into the very heart of hell itself

And thus were the Hylden finally set free. With the Pillars completely destroyed they no longer needed a gate to sustain their existence here in Nosgoth. Their long campaign through the streams of time had bared fruit and they were at last… at long last… liberated.

On mass they marched, ran, stumbled and jumped for the safety of Nosgoth; their entire civilisation migrating.

One Hylden, standing on the earth of Nosgoth, looked down at the dirt beneath his feet.

"The... the binding is…" He began but stopped. He gulped and closed his eyes. "I… I can't bring myself to say it." He admitted, shaking his head.

Another of his kin, older with an inch of height on the first laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"Do not sully this tremendous moment, cousin." His kinsman advised him, his raspy voice doing its best to sound sincere. Around them, countless Hylden advanced in a stream from the open demon dimension into the valley of Avernus, something they had waited patiently for eons for. "Say it… let it be official in your mind and heart."

The younger nodded and opened his eyes to look up at the grey sky.

"The binding is gone. The restraints upon us have collapsed." He declared and over loud for the benefit of those around him

"The Pillar's no longer bind us to that place." The older added in jubilation. The joy of the Hylden was infectious, travelling around their number as they streamed through the open rifts. Small celebrations broke out in places with much cheering and jubilant yelling.

Some of the Hylden were still working; helping to ship various materials through the holes as well, materials that they had gathered in their strange other world and that would be useful in their grand migration.

The chaos of noise was interrupted by a resounding blast of some deep instrument, like a horn being blown. All heads turned to observe the top of a small rocky outcrop of boulders where several Hylden were gathered.

"All silence for the words of the High Priest Ishtar!" The Hylden holding the carved out demon's horn proclaimed in a bellowing voice. He stepped aside and another strode forward to take his place as the crowd of their people grew silent.

The priest was wearing a scarlet clothe garment that hung down the back long his ridges to his ankles. Elaborate golden jewellery hung from his hands and frill, chains of silver connecting to the bodice of tight leather cut from demon hide.

"Brothers, sisters, cousins…" He intoned. Like all the Hylden, he had a rasping voice yet he carried it well enough as he began his sermon. "Let this be a moment of celebration and a renewal of our fellowship and our faith."

Ishtar waited until the half muted cheer of agreement died down from his people.

"The Keeper has delivered us out of hell itself and our enemies have withered and died while we remain strong.

Join hands and let us offer up our prayers in thanks for this miracle!"

He drew his hands together and those around him did the same, bowing their heads. Seeing this display of piety, the entire Hylden race clasped their hand together in prayer.

"O' holy Keeper." Ishtar stared, still in a loud voice. "We owe you much for our deliverance.

You cared for us just as you promised and guided us home.

We pray that you look after the soul of our fallen General who gave his life against the last Guardian so that we might see this happy day."

The crowd repeated each word he said, tens of thousands of voices joined together in commune.

Ishtar allowed for a profound moment of silence before he straightened, turning to look down south across the length of the Avernus valley to the horizon beyond. This world was dead, grey and corrupt but it was paradise compared to the realm they had escaped from.

"Our family had endured and we are rewarded." He said; face twisting into a wide grin. "Now we shall colonise Nosgoth once more."

-

The necropolis of the Melchiahim was a place few hunters dared go. The Melciahim were the most feared of all the clans. Not for their strengths or their numbers but for their hideous practise of taking the skins of their victims to replace their own.

Centuries ago a town called Steinchenchroe had stood here but after a pestilence had depopulated the region it had been made a memorial for the dead of Nosgoth. Kain had taken it over during his rise to power and it had become a burial ground for vampire soldiers of his armies who died in battle.

When the collapse of the empire began, the Melchiahim moved in to use the corpses here for sources of skins to wear and corpses to raise as more of their own.

With the death of Melchiah, and every other clan leader, the clan was in disarray and chaos. The vampires of Nosgoth were now little more than feral beasts and without the reigning influence of their leaders they were mindless animals. Like the Dumahim now, the vampires were spreading out from their traditional territories becoming nomadic.

There were a few Melchiahim who had not left the necropolis yet and one of them was scurrying around the tall grave stones in the north western section of the city of the dead. Its skin was rotting again and it needed a replacement set before it could attempt to leave to look for better hunting grounds.

It pack would not wait forever and it needed to find a good skin quite quickly.

Suddenly a grave it was kneeling next to shook, the earth over the interred corpse trembling for a single instant with the dirt trickling off to either side.

Its attention drawn to it, the Melchiahim began to shovel dirt out of the graves with its claws. It cared not for the strange disturbance merely for the opportunity for a skin.

The skins of the long dead did not hold up as much as those of a fresh kill but the Melchiahim would settle for this until something better came along.

When it finally came across a corpse, it began to scrap away the dirt to pry it loose from the earth. The vampire was quite unprepared for when the corpse hoisted itself up out of the grave with a sudden lurch, its arm lashing out to grab it around the throat.

It staggered back in alarm, dragging the corpse up out of the earth trailing stones and dirt.

"I…I hnnngggggur!" The corpse moaned, the words barely intelligible as its jaw dropped off. The free hand drew back and then slammed forward directly into the Melchiahim's chest, piercing through to stab directly through the heart.

When the hand emerged out the back, it had three long claw like talons instead of fingers.

The Melchiahim stared with wide eyes at the being who had impaled it, watching it change before its eyes. The hair re-grew out of its scalp, raven black down both sides of the head. The fangs in its mouth elongated and became sharp and pointed, as did the ears.

The fingers on the hands fused together and became bone like talons, wrapped around by bandage like wrappings that formed up along the arm almost to the shoulder. Across the shoulders and up to the gaping mouth formed more clothe, covering up the gaping hole where the jaw had been and resting over the tip of the nose. Across the wrapping was the upside down double symbol of the lost Razielim.

The frame was now skeletal, with the ribs showing and a spine held together with exposed muscle and sinew down to the hips.

Slowly, the colour spreading, the skin changed from a putrid green to a deep sea blue. As the blue became dominant, two flaps of membranous skin erupted out from the back like wings, flowing in the faint breeze.

-

**_"I awoke to a feral existence, savage and mindless… unable to force the simplest thought through my fragmented mind."_**

-

The Melchiahim fell backwards to be rendered apart by the claws, slicing through the fragile flesh to the organs within. The blue creature ripped the vampire apart, cleaving through it nearly completely. The feral vampire collapsed, sliced in two before it even hit the ground, its blood seeping out to stain the earth.

As it died, its essence, the soul began to fade from its body; luminously pulsing up into the air.

The creature however was ready and drew its cowl down, a powerful inner light pulsing out from that gaping maw. The soul quivered, trying to get away before it was sucked into that light.

As its energy was absorbed, the blue creature's eyes began to glow with renewed power.

-

**_ "The only static and constant thing in my head was one concrete fact. My name."_**

-

Nosgoth was once again beneath his feet, the familiar Nosgoth… a land where life was rare and the hour was late.

-

**_"I am Raziel." _**

****

**_The gothic journey continues as Raziel, walking Nosgoth once again, must carry on where Kain left off in the upcoming sequel, Soul Reaver 3. _**

**_--_**

Hope you all enjoyed Blood Omen 3. Yes I leave it on a cliff hanger because well… I'm evil. So you all have to wait a few months until I get the time to really get into the sequel. I appreciate all the feedback I get, especially from details reviews. So please by all means post plot suggestions when reviewing this story. In fact I really encourage it.

Watch my user for the first chapters of Soul Reaver 3, coming some time this spring.

LOK References:

Kain's last line to the Elder god in the chapter 'Talk with my enemy.' This was a cut line from the end of defiance that I had to include.

Shield of Raziel-Divus. Originally Raziel was intended to have a shield in defiance but this was cut. The description of it was taken from the fan concept art at the Lost worlds.

Resurrection of Vorador. I pinched it. Sorry it has to be said. I once read a very old fanfic and I stole Vorador's resurrection method from it. I added my own spin on it though so its … semi unique.

The Keeper: I would like to note that the Keeper is not my creation but rather that of my best friend Stefanie and she granted me permission to use him. All rights reserved to her. Check her out on her DA, Taleea, for images of the Keeper in her gallery.

Latin references:

sancrasanctus - highest of holy

divus - the god-like

nefastus - the unholy one

Fanum-Divus –holy place

Mors Mortibirus - how the dead die (a line cut from Blood Omen 2)


End file.
